Retailers agree to early holiday gift for 50,000 on-call shift workers

File photo taken in 2015 shows a boy looking at Star Wars toys and other memorabilia at a Disney Store in Santa Monica, California. An estimated 50,000 workers nationwide for and four other U.S. retailers are expected to get an early holiday present from their employers — new agreements to end on-call work shift scheduling. A coalition of state attorneys general said Tuesday that also have said they will stop the practice, which typically requires employees to phone in shortly before a scheduled work shift to find out whether they will be assigned to work that day. Additionally, Carter's, Disney, David's Tea and Zumiez committed to giving employees their work scheduled at least one week in advance of the workweek, the state officials said. "On-call shifts are not a business necessity and should be a thing of the past," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who characterized the procedure as unfair. Workers assigned to shifts by call-in scheduling "encounter obstacles in pursuing an education, and in general experience higher incidences of adverse health effects, overall stress, and strain on family life than workers who enjoy the stability of knowing their schedules reasonably in advance," the letter said.