More Protections for Temp Workers Needed
(WWJ is a founding member of the National Staffing Workers Alliance)
The U.S. economy currently has a record number of “temporary help jobs,” but many of them fall short in terms of safety and pay for workers, according to a new report on the growth of the staffing industry by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and the National Staffing Workers Alliance (NSWA).
“The shift towards temp work is creating an economy in which working people who move and produce products for some of our nation’s largest and most profitable corporations are treated like any other input, to be acquired at the cheapest cost,” said the report’s co-author Rebecca Smith, NELP’s deputy director. “Staffing agencies not only fail to provide livable wages, benefits or job security for their workers, but their influence in an industry can lower standards for all workers in that industry.”