Workers legally entitled to pay when their shift is cut short may not receive that money, research finds.

And if they aren’t getting this pay, it’s often on the employees to call attention to the law, according to the study.

The law in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC, says some hourly workers have to be compensated if they report to work only to have their shift cut short.

“Shift cuts undermine the well-being of workers and their families,” says Savannah Hunter, doctoral student in sociology at the University of California, Davis and coauthor of the paper in the journal Social Forces.

“The law may not be enforced consistently. We really need better support of labor in this country, generally.”

Lead author Ryan Finnigan, associate professor of sociology, says: “Places like San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Oregon recently implemented similar policies to improve the predictability and regularity of workers’ schedules. But we found that the enforcement process for these kinds of policies really needs to improve for them to be effective.” Finnigan is also a faculty affiliate with the UC Davis Center for Poverty and Inequality Research.

In a nationwide survey of over 1,000 hourly workers, only 4% knew they were covered by such a law, and only 17% of supervisors responding said they were aware of laws in their jurisdictions, Hunter says. In an informational session in California that...

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