Talking Points

Protecting Contingent or "Non-Standard" Workers

The Problem

• Contingent or "non-standard" workers, comprising upwards of 30 percent of the workforce, lack the benefits and protections extended to full-time employees, including health care, vacation, and unemployment insurance.

• Working in part-time, temporary, contract, day labor, and other non-standard employment arrangements, many of these workers labor side-by-side with full-time, permanent employees, yet are paid less and receive minimal or no health care, pension, vacation, sick leave or other benefits.

• In the past, these employment practices were mostly found in marginal sectors, such as migrant farm work and garment sweatshops. But, since the early 1990s, contingent work has become an low road standard in the new economy.

A Growing Problem

• The number of temporary workers has tripled over the past decade. The temporary employment agency business is the second fastest-growing industry in America. On an average day, about 2.8 million Americans work as temps.

• Ten years ago, half of all temporary workers were filling clerical positions. Today, the number of clerical workers (39 percent of the temp workforce) is nearly matched by the number of industrial and construction workers (35 percent of the temp workforce).

• There is no end in sight to the practice of hiring contingent workers.   In October 1999, over 20 percent (45,000) of the 215,000 new jobs created were temporary jobs. Surveys indicate that two-thirds of U.S.firms plan to expand their use of contingent workers in the next five years. 2

Not Regulated

• Key labor and employment laws generally do not cover contingent workers. They generally do not have the right to collective bargaining, Family and Medical Leave, or unemployment insurance.

• Temp agencies typically fail to provide their workers with accurate job descriptions, pay scales and work schedules. Moreover, some employers misclassify workers as independent consultants, so they do not have to offer benefits.

• Temporary workers have difficulty receiving unemployment insurance benefits in many states. Temporary workers are often denied unemployment benefits if they refuse to take a job offered to them by their temp firm, even if the offered assignment is not comparable to their prior assignment and pays less.

Safety Concerns

• Getting adequate job training, especially on machinery, is more difficult for day laborers and other temporary construction and industrial workers, putting them at higher risk of injury. Often employers of temporary workers fail to enforce Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations because of confusion between the hiring agency and the client over the responsibility for training and safety.

• In May 2001, the California agency that enforces OSHA ruled in two cases that temp firms have a duty to ensure that job sites are safe. In both cases, the temp agency argued that it was impractical to inspect and monitor every job site for safety.  According to CAL-OSHA, "no employer shall require or permit any employee to go to or be in a workplace that is not safe or healthful." CAL-OSHA further noted that the decision by a temp agency to supply construction contractors with workers comes with the responsibility to ensure the safety of those workers.

Targeting Minorities

• Women and people of color are disproportionately employed in contingent jobs with low wages and few or no benefits. In a recent survey, 31 percent of minority respondents -- compared to 22 percent of the general public -- said that during the previous 10 years they had worked as part-time, temp or contract employees when they would have preferred a standard job.3

• Over two-thirds of the public believes it is unfair that contingent workers get paid lower hourly wages than regular employees doing the same work.4

Endnotes

1 Economic Policy Institute (1999).
2 The National Alliance for Fair Employment, Contingent Workers Fight for Fairness, 2000, at 17.
3 January 2000 survey conducted by Lake Snell Perry and Associates for the National Alliance for Fair Employment as reported in Contingent Workers Fight for Fairnessat 19.
4 Ibid at 3.

This policy summary relies in large part on information from the National Employment Law Project and the  Center for Policy Alternatives. 

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