Supply Chain Accountability for Temp Workers

By NESRI
Big companies like Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and more have degraded blue-collar jobs that were once highly desired, well-paid union jobs. These companies are permanently replacing direct hire jobs with abusive "temporary" jobs through layers of contracting, with temp agencies bringing workers to labor in their factories and warehouses.
Temp agencies promise more for less at the expense of workers, containing costs by squeezing profit from workers' wages, benefits, and working conditions. The message of expendability directed at workers employed as temps, living paycheck to paycheck, poses a constant threat to workers who try to improve their jobs through organizing or defend their rights against abuse. 

In collaboration with the National Staffing Workers Alliance, NESRI has released Temporary Work, Permanent Abuse: How Big Business Destroys Good Jobs, capturing the devastating human impact of this systemic corporate practice. The joint report includes findings from 13 focus groups with industrial temp workers in the metro areas of Chicago and Boston and the ports of southern California and New Jersey.

Key findings include:

• Though all workers preferred direct hire work, four out of five had never had a temp job lead to being directly hired
• Six years was the average time participants had been working through temp agencies
• 74 percent had experienced illegal wage theft
• 47 percent had filed a complaint with the DOL or tried to improve wages or working conditions and experienced retaliation

Read More at NESRI