PROS & CONS: BERKELEY MEASURE Q NOV. 2014

Measure Q: Flexible Work Time

  • Simple Majority Required
  • Advisory Measure

The Question: Should Berkeley voters advise the City Council to adopt an ordinance giving employees in Berkeley the right to request to work part-time and requiring employers to respond in writing? Should the Council send letters to state and federal elected officials, requesting them to give government employees the right to have shorter work hours, if doing so would not cause problems?

What Measure Q Would Do: Measure Q gives advice to the City Council. It does not enact a law. It requests the Council to adopt an ordinance based on the “Working Families Flexibility Act,” introduced in Congress in 2007 as Senate Bill
S. 2419, and the Family Friendly Workplace Ordinance adopted in San Francisco, that would give public and private employees in Berkeley the right to request to work part-time and request flexible work arrangements. Employers would have to respond in writing, but could refuse the request by stating a business reason. No appeals would be allowed and small business could be exempt. The proposed ordinance would apply to all employees, not just family caregivers, and could be adjusted to the needs of local employers. Flexible work hours could include compressed work weeks or telecommuting as well as fewer hours.

Measure Q also requests the City to write to all the appropriate state and federal elected officials requesting the state and federal governments to adopt laws and policies giving government employees the right to request shorter or more flexible work hours and that the state and federal governments must grant such requests, if doing so would not cause operational problems. In particular, the City should urge state and national elected officials to pass a law with the same provisions as the “Working Families Flexibility Act,” introduced in Congress in 2007 as Senate Bill S. 2419.

Supporters Say:

  • Flexible work—through part-time work, telecommuting, or compressed work weeks—improves family life, increases employment and productivity, and reduces both employee turnover and environmental impacts.
  • The advisory measure proposes laws similar to those passed in San Francisco and Vermont in 2013
    and regulations adopted by President Obama for federal workers. Similar European Laws have worked well.

No opposing argument was filed.

The full text of Measure Q: http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureQ-V3.pdf

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