By Gabriel Camacho

Good afternoon, 

Chairwoman Jehlen, Chairman Cutler, and members of the Committee. 

My name is Gabriel Camacho. I am the Political Director for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445. The UFCW 1445 offers testimony in favor of S. 1236 and H. 1974 An Act Relative to the Scheduling of Employees. 

UFCW 1445 represents 14,000 essential workers throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We represent workers in diverse industries and services such as healthcare, industrial laundries, meat packing, supermarkets, the TD Garden, warehouses, retail, and more recently cannabis workers. 

As you can image from the list of employers I just mentioned we have a variety of scheduling regimes and structures in our Collective Bargaining Agreements, offering both security and flexibility for our members’ work lives and in turn their family lives. 

Without these protections our members’ work and personal lives would be turned into turmoil. 

S. 1236 and H. 1974 An Act Relative to the Scheduling Employees would offer similar stability and protections to possibly millions in the Massachusetts workforce. I’ll just highlight two provisions. 

1. The right to advance notice in both posting a schedule and modifying a shift is crucial for workers to have some control over their lives. 

2. The right to compensation for a changed schedule offers some income stability to workers with changing schedules. 

Should industry opponents claim that these bills are an over-reach and a one-size-fits-all solution to a non-problem, then they have the option to voluntary recognize my union or any union and negotiate scheduling provisions into a Collective Bargaining Agreement. 

These are among the many reasons why the workforce of the Commonwealth is seeking this statutory solution to a very real everyday problem. 

We urge you favorably report these bills out of Committee. Thank You