Written for owners of independent stores and small chains in the US: convenience and grocery, liquor and smoke shops, fashion, gifts, hardware, and garden and farm stores.
The short version
- Check your city's scheduling law before posting.Notice, cancellation and call-in pay rules vary by city and state. Settle changes early and check any exception with counsel.
- Keep 14 and 15-year-olds within hour limits.Federally, at most 3 hours on a school day, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. outside summer. Stricter state law applies. As of Oct 2026.
- Train staff to report, never stop thieves.They observe and record each incident, and you get a police report number. A wrongful detention claim usually costs more than the goods.
Retail has its own employment rules: city scheduling laws, reporting-time pay, teenagers in the stockroom and the question of what a clerk should do when someone walks out with merchandise.
Scheduling and reporting-time pay
Los Angeles retail employers with 300 or more employees worldwide give 14 days' notice of schedules. San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia and Oregon have their own rules and thresholds: check yours before you post a schedule. As of Oct 2026.
Scheduling and call-in pay
NYC retail employers with 20 or more employees across their NYC stores cannot cancel a shift within 72 hours except for statutory emergencies. California mercantile workers sent home early get half the scheduled shift, 2 to 4 hours. New York call-in pay is at least 4 hours or the scheduled shift if shorter. As of Oct 2026.
NYC Admin. Code 20-1251 and following; IWC Wage Order 7 section 5; 12 NYCRR 142-2.3
Covered NYC retail employers cannot cancel within 72 hours except for statutory emergencies, and neither consent nor a premium makes an ordinary late cancellation lawful.
Teenagers
- 14 and 15-year-olds, under federal rules: at most 3 hours on a school day, 18 in a school week, 8 on a non-school day and 40 in a non-school week, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (9 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day).
- Under-18s cannot operate or unload covered machinery. A narrow exception lets 16 and 17-year-olds load certain safe scrap-paper balers and paper-box compactors that cannot run while being loaded; get employment counsel to confirm the equipment and safeguards first.
Federal and state child labor rules
Hours and time-of-day limits for 14 and 15-year-olds, and the narrow loading exception for 16 and 17-year-olds, which requires, among other things, the machine to meet an applicable ANSI standard, adults to keep custody of its key-lock or equivalent control, and a prominent notice. Where state law is stricter, it applies: New York, for example, allows the 9 p.m. finish only from June 21 and caps 14 and 15-year-olds at 6 days a week. As of Oct 2026.
29 CFR 570.35; 29 CFR 570.63(c)(1); 29 U.S.C. 218(a); N.Y. Labor Law 142
For example, a 15-year-old stocker scheduled until 8 p.m. on an October school night must finish by 7 p.m. under federal rules. Reschedule the shift.
Commissioned sales staff
The retail commission exemption
Commissioned retail staff are exempt from federal overtime if their regular rate is more than 1.5 times the minimum wage and more than half their pay over a representative period of at least a month is commission. California has its own test. As of Oct 2026.
FLSA Section 7(i)
Shoplifters
The merchant's privilege
In California, Texas, New York and Florida a store may detain a suspected shoplifter for a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner on probable cause.
Cal. Penal Code 490.5(f); Tex. Civ. Prac. and Rem. Code 124.001; N.Y. GBL 218; Fla. Stat. 812.015(3)
A wrongful detention claim usually costs more than the goods. Train staff to observe and report, and never ask them to stop a thief. OSHA's general duty clause covers workplace violence risk: plan for it with panic buttons, drop safes and two-person closing.
Force beyond reasonable detention exposes the store to a battery claim.
Civil demand letters are allowed in California, Texas and Florida, but only for what each statute allows. Have a state-licensed attorney check yours before it goes out, and after any detention.
Asked in Greymill
Maria's shift: NYC retail employers with 20 or more employees across their NYC stores cannot cancel a shift within 72 hours, except for statutory emergencies (As of Oct 2026).
Slow sales do not count as an emergency, and neither her OK nor the $50 makes a late cancellation lawful.
Settle changes more than 72 hours out. Ask employment counsel or DCWP, the city's consumer and worker protection agency, about any exception.
Your stocker: federal and New York rules for 14 and 15-year-olds (As of Oct 2026):
School day: 3 hours at most
School week: 18 hours at most
Time of day: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 p.m. in summer (from June 1 federally, June 21 in New York)
An 8 p.m. finish on an October school night breaks that. Reschedule those shifts.
Happy to go through next week's schedule shift by shift.
Ask it about your own business
Paste this into Greymill with your own figures, and Staff & HR works it through for your business.
I run a shop in [city], [state], in the US, with [number] staff including [number] under 18. Check my scheduling practice against my city's scheduling law, flag any shifts that break the federal or state limits for 14 and 15-year-olds, and draft a one-page shoplifting policy for staff: observe, record, report.
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Open the interactive lesson · Every shops and physical retail lesson · What Greymill knows about the trade
Sources
The primary sources behind this lesson, checked Oct 2026.
- 29 U.S.C. 207(i) (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- NYC Admin. Code 20-1251 and following (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- LAMC Article 5.6 (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- IWC Wage Order 7 section 5 (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- 12 NYCRR 142-2.3 (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- 29 CFR 570.35; Subpart E (People: wage and hour, scheduling and minors)
- Cal. Penal Code 490.5(f); Tex. Civ. Prac. and Rem. Code 124.001; NY GBL 218; Fla. Stat. 812.015(3) (Shrink, organized retail crime and staff safety)
- Penal Code 490.2, 490.4; Tex. Penal Code 31.16 (Shrink, organized retail crime and staff safety)
- Cal. Penal Code 490.5; Tex. CPRC ch. 134; Fla. Stat. 772.11 (Shrink, organized retail crime and staff safety)
- 29 U.S.C. 654(a)(1) (Shrink, organized retail crime and staff safety)