An observation from day-to-day life during my recent month in Ireland was the practice of supermarket cashiers sitting down on the job. Not as a special accommodation. A small thing, perhaps, but it sent me down a rabbit hole.As it turns out there is a long history of “right to sit” legislation around the world. While it is now common for disabled and pregnant workers to have the right to request seating, “right to sit” does not require the worker to make a formal request or to prove a need.
In the United States in the late 1800s most states began to pass these laws applying primarily to female workers. Since that time most have repealed them altogether except in cases that fall under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but they survive either in “dead letter law” form, or in updated forms in a handful of states.
As serendipity would have it, recently Ann Arbor, Michigan became the first city in Michigan to join a few others across the county in passing a law applying to a broad range of positions.
Employers in the United States, by and large, have not been fans of these laws, so it is hard to say whether they will spread in the future.
As I continue to research and write about how to increase labor force participation, my perspective is that this may be one way to open jobs to a new pool of workers in many industries that continue to struggle to stabilize their workforce.
Here’s a Fast Company article on the potential impact on retail workers, and a link to Wikipedia’s list of where each state stands on right to sit legislation.