Just cause required to fire fast food workers. 15%+ hour cuts trigger protection.
NYC's Fast Food Just Cause Law (effective 2021) eliminates at-will employment for fast food workers. After a 30-day probation period, fast food employers can only terminate (or reduce hours by 15%+) for just cause: failure to perform duties or misconduct, both with progressive discipline. Reductions due to economic factors require 'bona fide economic reason' with last-in-first-out layoffs. Penalties: reinstatement plus back pay plus civil penalties.
NYC Fast Food Just Cause Termination
Tracks 30-day probation period. Enforces just-cause documentation for terminations. Detects 15%+ hour reductions and applies just-cause requirements. Maintains progressive discipline records.
What the rule does for fast food workers.
The hero card configuration: Critical on terminations, Block on hour reductions. Here's what each does at runtime.
After the 30-day probation period, fast food worker terminations require documented just cause: failure to perform duties (with progressive discipline) or misconduct. Without documentation, the termination surfaces as a Critical alert.
When a worker's average weekly hours would drop 15%+ from prior 12-week average, Teambridge blocks the schedule change unless just cause is documented OR the change is part of a layoff with bona fide economic reason.
Deploy NYC Just Cause in your Teambridge.
Tell us about your NYC fast food workforce. We'll spin up just-cause documentation, progressive discipline, hour-reduction monitoring, and economic-layoff workflow — in a sandbox tenant.
No more at-will. Termination + significant hour cuts both require cause.
NYC's Just Cause law is the first in the U.S. to eliminate at-will employment for a class of workers. Most observers expected legal challenges; the law has so far been upheld by NY courts.
30-day probation
During the first 30 days of employment, fast food workers are at-will — terminations don't require just cause. After 30 days, just-cause requirements apply. Layoffs during probation still subject to scheduling laws (Fair Workweek hours-offered, etc.) but not just-cause termination.
Just cause definition
Two paths: (1) failure to satisfactorily perform job duties (requires progressive discipline) OR (2) misconduct demonstrably and materially harmful to legitimate business interests (more serious; can be immediate). Misconduct includes theft, sexual harassment, fraud, violence, gross insubordination.
Teambridge tracks probation, documentation, and the 15% hour-reduction threshold.
Just-cause compliance lives or dies in the documentation. Teambridge structures the workflow so progressive discipline is captured at each step.
Cause-protection starts day 31.
Each fast food worker's hire date triggers a 30-day probation timer. Day 31 onward, termination requires just-cause documentation. Probation status visible to managers throughout onboarding.
Warnings + improvement plans logged.
Performance issues are logged as discipline events: verbal warning, written warning, performance improvement plan, final warning. Each event timestamped, witnessed, and accessible to the worker. Skipped steps surface as audit-defense risks.
12-week rolling average vs. proposed change.
When schedule changes would reduce a worker's 4-week forward average more than 15% from the prior 12-week average, the change surfaces as a 'discharge' under § 20-1272. Just-cause documentation required.
Layoff with LIFO + rehire rights.
When economic factors drive layoffs, the workflow captures: bona fide economic reason (full/partial closure, technological change, business volume reduction), LIFO selection within job classification, 12-month rehire rights for affected workers.
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