Fair Workweek Laws 2026: Chicago, NYC, Oregon and More

A Chicago shift supervisor moves a cashier's Thursday shift to Friday because a delivery slipped. Six days' notice, same hours, no complaint from the cashier. Under Chicago's Fair Workweek Ordinance, that change still costs one hour of predictability pay. Multiply it by every tweak a busy store makes in a month and scheduling habits that were free a few years ago become a real payroll line, and a real source of claims.

In short: Fair Workweek, or predictive scheduling, laws require covered employers in certain US cities and in Oregon to post schedules in advance (usually 14 days), pay a premium called predictability pay when they change them late, give rest between closing and opening shifts, and provide a good-faith estimate of hours at hire. There is no federal law; coverage depends on city, industry and employer size.

This guide compares every major Fair Workweek law in force in September 2026: Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, the City and County of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Evanston, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oregon. Figures were checked against official city and state sources. The ordinances contain exceptions, franchise rules and edge cases that a comparison table cannot capture, so always check the current rules with the relevant labor standards office before relying on a figure.

What is a Fair Workweek law?

Fair Workweek laws target the unpredictable scheduling common in retail, restaurants and hospitality: rotas posted a few days ahead, shifts cancelled the same morning, on-call shifts that never materialise, and closing shifts followed by opening ones. Although each city writes its own rules, almost every ordinance is built from the same six parts:

• Advance notice: the schedule must be posted or provided a set number of days ahead, 14 days in most jurisdictions (72 hours for New York City retail).
• Predictability pay: a premium for employer-initiated changes after the schedule is posted, typically one extra hour of pay when hours are added or moved, and half pay for hours cut.
• Right to rest: employees may decline a shift that starts too soon after the previous one ended (9, 10 or 11 hours, depending on the city), and are paid a premium if they work it.
• Good-faith estimate: a written estimate of expected hours and days, given at hire.
• Access to hours: additional hours must be offered to existing part-time staff before new hires are made.
• Records and notices: required workplace posters, and records of schedules and changes, typically kept for two to three years.

Most laws also carve out changes the employee asks for, mutually agreed shift swaps between employees, and emergencies such as utility failures or severe weather. Those exceptions matter: a well-run swap process keeps a lot of schedule changes outside the premium rules.

Fair Workweek laws compared: 2026 table

The table summarises the core rules in each jurisdiction as of September 2026. "Notice" is the advance posting period; "predictability pay" shows the most common premiums, not every tier.

Chicago Fair Workweek: the $33.85 threshold and 2026 rules

Chicago's ordinance is one of the broadest in the country because it covers seven industries, including healthcare, manufacturing and warehouse services, not just retail and restaurants. From July 1, 2026, an employee is covered if they work in a covered industry for an employer with at least 100 employees globally (restaurants: at least 250 employees and 30 locations) and earn no more than $33.85 an hour or $64,945.55 a year. The ceiling is adjusted each July, so check the current figure on the City of Chicago's Office of Labor Standards pages every summer. On the same date Chicago's minimum wage rose to $17.05 an hour.

Covered employees are entitled to 14 days' notice of their work schedule, the right to decline previously unscheduled hours added within that window, one hour of predictability pay for each change made within 14 days, at least 50% of their pay for hours cancelled or cut with less than 24 hours' notice, and the right to decline a shift starting less than 10 hours after the previous day's shift ended. If they work that shift, including with their written agreement, the entire shift is paid at 1.25 times the base rate. New hires must also receive a good-faith estimate of their schedule for the first 90 days.

Here is what common schedule changes cost for a covered employee earning $20 an hour, based on the Chicago Office of Labor Standards guidance:

Chicago does not require predictability pay when an employee clocks in early or leaves late on their own initiative, for mutually agreed shift trades between covered employees, or in listed emergencies. Healthcare providers have additional exceptions for disasters and procedures requiring specialised skills.

New York City: fast food and retail rules

New York City has two separate regimes. Fast food employers that are part of a chain with 30 or more establishments nationally must give 14 days' notice of a schedule covering at least seven days, provide a written regular schedule, offer open shifts to current workers before hiring, and pay a premium for every employer-initiated change:

A fast food "clopening", meaning two shifts over two days with less than 11 hours between them, requires the worker's written consent and a $100 premium each time. Since July 2021, NYC fast food workers are also protected by just-cause rules: they can only be fired, or have their hours cut by more than 15%, for just cause or a bona fide economic reason.

Retail employers with 20 or more employees in the city face shorter notice but stricter bans: schedules must be provided 72 hours in advance, on-call scheduling is prohibited, and shifts cannot be cancelled within 72 hours or added within 72 hours without the worker's written consent. There is no premium schedule for NYC retail; the rules are prohibitions instead.

West Coast laws: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oregon

The West Coast has the densest cluster of scheduling laws, and they share a common template of 14 days' notice, one hour of pay for added or moved hours and half pay for hours cut, but differ on rest periods and coverage:

• Seattle: the Secure Scheduling Ordinance covers retail and food service employers with 500 or more employees worldwide (full-service restaurants also need 40 or more full-service locations). Hours worked within 10 hours of a previous closing shift are paid at time-and-a-half, and employers must give a good-faith estimate of median hours at hire and every year.
• San Francisco: the Formula Retail Employee Rights Ordinances cover chains with 40 or more establishments worldwide and 20 or more employees in the city, including their janitorial and security contractors. Predictability pay is 1 hour for changes with less than 7 days' notice, and 2 or 4 hours for changes with less than 24 hours' notice, depending on the size of the change. Employees on on-call shifts who are not called in receive 2 or 4 hours of pay. There is no rest-between-shifts rule.
• Los Angeles City and County: both cover retail employers with 300 or more employees globally; the county ordinance, effective July 1, 2025, applies in unincorporated areas. A shift starting less than 10 hours after the last one requires written consent and is paid at time-and-a-half. Employees keep predictability pay even when they agree to the change.
• Berkeley and Emeryville: both use an 11-hour rest window with time-and-a-half, and for cuts with less than 24 hours' notice require up to 4 hours of pay. Berkeley's thresholds start at 10 employees in the city; Emeryville covers retail and fast food employers with 56 or more employees globally.
• Oregon: still the only statewide predictive scheduling law in the US. It covers retail, hospitality and food service employers with 500 or more employees worldwide, requires 14 days' notice, and bars scheduling within 10 hours of the previous day's shift unless the worker requests or agrees to it, with time-and-a-half for hours worked inside the window. Employers may keep an opt-in voluntary standby list for extra hours.

Philadelphia and Evanston

Philadelphia's Fair Workweek law covers non-exempt employees of retail, hospitality and food service employers with 250 or more employees and 30 or more locations worldwide. It requires 14 days' notice, a good-faith estimate at hire, one hour of predictability pay for added or moved hours and half pay for hours cut. Its rest rule is unusual: employees may decline hours less than 9 hours after the previous day's shift, and if they agree in writing and work it, the premium is a flat $40 per shift rather than a multiple of pay. For tipped workers, predictability pay is calculated at a set rate of $17.88 an hour from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. The 2025 POWER Act restructured enforcement but did not change these rules.

Evanston, Illinois, adopted its own Fair Workweek Ordinance in 2023, in force since January 1, 2024. It covers hospitality, retail, warehouse services, manufacturing and building services employers with 100 or more employees globally, and restaurants with 200 or more employees and 30 or more locations. It requires 14 days' notice, one hour of pay per change, and for cuts with less than 24 hours' notice half the hours lost up to a maximum of 4. Unlike Chicago, Evanston uses an 11-hour rest window with time-and-a-half, and has no income ceiling. Its published guidance is not fully consistent on the on-call premium, so employers should confirm that point with the city.

What if your city has no Fair Workweek law?

There is no federal predictive scheduling law. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime after 40 hours in a workweek but says nothing about schedule notice or rest between shifts, so outside the jurisdictions above, employers are generally free to change schedules at short notice. Several states, including California and New York, do have separate reporting-time or call-in pay rules that apply when an employee reports to work and is sent home early, so check state wage orders even where no scheduling ordinance exists.

The map is also shaped by preemption. About a dozen states have laws preventing cities from passing their own scheduling rules; Florida, for example, expressly barred local predictive scheduling ordinances in 2024. At state level, bills have been introduced repeatedly in states such as New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois, but as of September 2026 Oregon remains the only state with a statewide law in force. Multi-state employers should expect the list to keep changing.

How to build a Fair Workweek-compliant schedule

Compliance is less about knowing the rules than about building them into the way schedules are made and changed. A practical checklist for covered employers:

• 1. Map every location to its jurisdiction and ordinance, including unincorporated county areas, and record which employees are covered (for Chicago, check pay against the $33.85 ceiling each July).
• 2. Post schedules at least 14 days ahead everywhere (72 hours for NYC retail is a minimum, not a target), and keep proof of when each schedule was published.
• 3. Encode the local rest window as a hard rule: 9 hours in Philadelphia, 10 in Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Oregon, 11 in New York City fast food, Evanston, Berkeley and Emeryville.
• 4. Give new hires a written good-faith estimate or regular schedule and keep a copy.
• 5. Route changes through a documented process that distinguishes employer-initiated changes (premium owed) from employee requests and mutual swaps (usually exempt), with written consent where required.
• 6. Offer additional hours to existing part-time staff before hiring, and keep a record of the offer.
• 7. Keep schedules, changes, consents and premium payments for at least three years; Seattle, for example, requires three.

Every one of these steps is easier when the schedule lives in software rather than a spreadsheet and a group chat. In imRoster you define your rules once, such as a 10- or 11-hour minimum rest between shifts, maximum hours and each person's availability, and the AI drafts a fair, conflict-free schedule that never schedules past them, so you can publish two weeks ahead instead of two days ahead. Leave requests and employee shift swaps run through one approval flow instead of scattered messages, which makes it clearer which changes were initiated by whom. You keep the final say on every schedule, and there is a 30-day free trial with no card required.

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