California Fair Scheduling Act: Notice, Pay, and Penalties

California does not have a statewide fair scheduling law. Instead, fair scheduling rules in California operate at the local level, and five jurisdictions currently enforce them: the City of Los Angeles, unincorporated Los Angeles County, San Francisco, Emeryville, and Berkeley. If you work for a large retail, fast food, or (in Berkeley) hospitality or healthcare employer in one of those places, you are entitled to advance notice of your schedule, extra pay when the employer changes it late, and other protections described below.

Which Jurisdictions Are Covered and Who They Apply To

Each ordinance sets its own industry and employer-size thresholds, so the first question is whether the rules reach your workplace at all.

City of Los Angeles: retail employers with 300 or more employees globally. Temporary staffing agencies, subsidiaries, and certain franchises count toward the threshold. Effective April 1, 2023.¹
Los Angeles County (unincorporated areas): retail employers with 300 or more employees. Effective July 1, 2025.²
San Francisco: “formula retail” employers with at least 40 retail locations worldwide, including restaurants, bars, banks, and take-out shops. Effective since 2015.
Emeryville: retail firms with 56 or more employees globally, and fast food companies with 56 or more employees globally and at least 20 in Emeryville. Effective since 2018.³
Berkeley: building services, healthcare, hotels, manufacturing, retail, warehouse services, and restaurants, with thresholds that vary by industry. Effective January 2023.⁴

If your employer sits outside these jurisdictions or under the size thresholds, no fair scheduling rule in California applies. The rest of this article focuses on the City of Los Angeles ordinance, the most detailed of the five, and flags where the other jurisdictions differ.

14-Day Advance Schedule Notice

Covered employers must give employees a written work schedule at least 14 calendar days before the work period starts. Posting it in a visible location at the workplace or sending it electronically both count.¹ San Francisco, Emeryville, and Berkeley all use the same two-week window. Any change the employer makes after that deadline triggers extra pay.

Good Faith Estimate of Hours

Before a new employee’s first day, the employer must hand over a written good faith estimate of expected hours, days, and shift times. Current employees can request the estimate at any time, and the employer has 10 calendar days to provide one.¹ The estimate is not a guarantee of hours, but it sets a baseline. If the actual schedule consistently departs from the estimate, the employer needs to issue an updated one. Failing to provide the estimate at all can cost the employer up to $500 per affected employee.⁵

Predictability Pay for Late Schedule Changes

When an employer changes a posted schedule after the 14-day window, the employee is owed extra compensation called predictability pay. Under the City of Los Angeles ordinance:¹

Added hours of more than 15 minutes: one extra hour of pay at the regular rate.
Changed date, time, or location: one extra hour of pay per change.
Reduced hours of at least 15 minutes: half the regular rate for the hours not worked.
On-call shift where the employee is never called in: half the regular rate for the hours not worked.

The pattern is simple. If the employer asks you to work more or at a different time, you get a one-hour premium. If the employer takes hours away, you get partial pay for the lost earnings. Berkeley and Emeryville use similar structures with different thresholds. Berkeley requires full pay for lost hours, up to four hours, when changes happen within 24 hours of the shift.

Rest Between Shifts

The Los Angeles ordinance directly targets “clopening” shifts, where an employee closes a store late at night and opens it early the next morning. An employer cannot schedule a shift that starts less than 10 hours after the previous shift ended unless the employee agrees in writing. If the employee consents, the employer pays time-and-a-half for the entire second shift, not just the hours inside the 10-hour rest window.⁶⁷

Emeryville and Berkeley set the rest threshold at 11 hours rather than 10 and require time-and-a-half for each hour within that window when the employee agrees to the back-to-back shifts.

Offering Extra Hours to Current Employees First

Before hiring new workers, a covered Los Angeles employer must offer the additional hours to qualified current employees with 72 hours of written notice, provided at least one current employee is qualified and the extra hours would not trigger overtime pay.¹ The rule targets underemployment among part-time retail workers who want more hours while the employer hires someone new. Skipping this step can cost the employer up to $500 per affected employee.⁵

Protection Against Retaliation

Every California fair workweek ordinance bars retaliation against employees who use their scheduling rights. In Los Angeles, that specifically covers workers who decline clopening shifts, request their good faith estimate, or file a scheduling complaint.¹ Cutting hours, moving someone to less desirable shifts, or threatening termination because a worker raised a scheduling concern all count. Employers also cannot force workers to find their own shift coverage when the absence is protected by other laws, such as sick leave or family leave.

Penalties for Employers

Penalties come from two directions: money owed to the employee and administrative fines paid to the city.

On the employee side, each type of Los Angeles violation carries a one-time penalty of up to $500 per affected employee. That covers failure to give a good faith estimate, missing the 14-day advance notice, no written notice of schedule changes, unpaid rest-between-shifts premiums, skipping the offer of hours to current employees, and requiring shift coverage for legally protected absences.⁵ On top of those fixed penalties, the employer must pay restitution: the actual wages or predictability pay the employee should have received.

On the city side, an employer that withholds predictability pay faces a fine of up to $50 per day the pay remains unpaid, and each day counts as a separate violation. A repeat violation of the same provision within three years can be fined 50 percent higher than the original maximum.¹

How to File a Scheduling Complaint

In the City of Los Angeles, an employee who believes their scheduling rights were violated must first send the employer written notice identifying the specific provisions violated and the supporting facts. The employer then has 15 calendar days to fix the problem. If it doesn’t, the employee can file a complaint with the Office of Wage Standards, which can investigate and collect fines on the employee’s behalf.¹ In unincorporated Los Angeles County, complaints go to the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs.⁸

There is no fee to file a scheduling complaint in any of these jurisdictions. The 15-day notice-and-cure step in Los Angeles matters: skipping it can delay or derail your complaint.

1
City of Los Angeles. Fair Work Week Information
2
Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. New Worker Protections for Unincorporated LA County Workers Take Effect
3
City of Emeryville, CA. Fair Workweek Ordinance
4
City of Berkeley. Workforce Standards and Enforcement
5
American Legal Publishing. Los Angeles Municipal Code – Section 188.07 Penalties and Remedies Payable to the Employee
6
American Legal Publishing. Los Angeles Municipal Code – Section 185.08 Rest Between Shifts
7
City of Los Angeles. Fair Work Week Ordinance FAQs
8
Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. Fair Workweek Ordinance for Employers