Dive Brief:

• L Brands Inc. is the latest retail company to end “on-call scheduling” in the face of a warning letter from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that the practice likely violates state law. 

• The company said its Bath & Body Works stores and Victoria’s Secret stores are phasing out the practice nationwide.

• Rise Up Georgia, a partner of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, has been organizing L Brands workers and asking the company to end the practice, especially at Bath & Body Works stores, and says the latest move doesn’t go far enough.

Dive Insight:

As the practice of on-call scheduling has drawn more scrutiny, lawmakers and regulators are calling for an end to the practice and taking steps, as Schneiderman's office has, to rein it in. Several jurisdictions, including a few states, already have laws on the books that could be used to temper or end the practice.

On-call scheduling uses algorithms to determine when workers are most needed or not, and many retailers have taken to sending workers home or having them at the ready without pay. That wreaks havoc on workers’ lives, hampering their ability to attend school, care for families, or hold down other jobs.

An improving job market is also helping make the practice less tenable as workers are more able to find jobs that are less disruptive to them.

Retailers should be prepared to see more such concerns, warnings, and even legislation as just-in time scheduling gets more scrutiny, Gail Gottehrer, a labor & employment litigator at Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider in New York who works on behalf of employers, told Retail Dive. The practice was a major concern when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last year unanimously passed its Worker Bill of Rights law.

But some worker advocates say that L Brands move doesn’t go far enough. 

"L Brand employees still have to put their lives on hold," Erin Hurley, an organizer for Rise Up Georgia and a former Bath & Body Works employee, said in a statement. "The company might have ended one type of on-call shifts, but it is still allowing for harmful shift practices: since July, they have been relying on shift extensions at Victoria’s Secret, which are on-call shifts by another name. While we celebrate the step forward, we call on L Brands to take a definitive step toward a fair workweek by giving workers shifts with definite start and end times, and enough hours to support their families.”

Schneiderman, meanwhile, praised the move while also making it clear that his office will continue to monitor the practice.