The Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights Act makes two major changes to protect part-time and temporary workers. First, it expands access to family and medical leave by eliminating the requirement that workers must have worked 1,250 hours in the past 12 months. Instead, workers only need to have been employed for at least 90 days to qualify for unpaid leave to handle serious health conditions, care for family members, or deal with military family situations. This change applies to private sector workers, federal employees, congressional staff, and other government workers.

Second, the bill prevents employers from discriminating against part-time or temporary workers compared to full-time workers doing substantially the same job. Employers cannot pay part-time workers less per hour, deny them benefits on a pro-rata basis, limit their promotion opportunities, or treat them unfairly in scheduling just because they work fewer hours. The bill also requires employers to ask workers when they're hired what hours they want to work, and then must offer those hours to existing employees before hiring new workers or contractors. If an employer hires someone new instead of giving those hours to an existing employee who wanted them, the employer must compensate the existing employee for those lost hours—with some exceptions for situations where the employee lacks skills, isn't available, or overtime costs would be excessive.