Supporters said the bill is needed to protect the rights of blue-collar workers.
Mary Ellen Scott, owner of United Personnel in Springfield, says a bill on Beacon Hill would hurt the business environment for temporary staffing agencies.Mary Ellen Scott, owner of United Personnel in downtown Springfield, is worried that a bill on Beacon Hill could damage temporary staffing agencies such as her own.
“It’s just not necessary,” said Scott, who started her company in 1984 with her late husband and last year placed 2,600 different people in temporary positions including engineers, clerical and light manufacturing jobs.
The bill, which received a hearing on June 30 in front of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, would re-write the laws that govern employment agencies.
Advocates said the legislation would allow the state to better regulate temporary employment agencies and would help prevent illegal work practices that mostly hurt blue-collar employees.
Scott said the bill would create too much paperwork and could unfairly penalize legitimate businesses.
According to a summary provided by the labor and workforce committee, the bill would require all employment agencies to be registered with the state Division of Occupational Safety. It would impose rules such as forcing agencies to provide blue-collar workers with written details about worker compensation, transportation, safety and employment duration.
Certain professional, scientific and technological services would be exempt from this proposed requirement.
The bill, which died last year, is sponsored by Rep. Linda D. Forry and Sen. John A. Hart, both Boston Democrats.
Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry, D-Boston, is a lead sponsor of a bill to overhaul regulation of temporary employment agencies.United Personnel places temporary employees with other companies, but United is the employer, Scott said. United pays those employees and offers benefits such as health insurance, vacation and holiday pay, training and incentive bonuses, she said.
Scott’s agency makes money by essentially collecting fees from “clients,” or the companies that use her temporary workers.
Her company also employs 22 full-time people in her Main Street office including those in payroll and sales.
Under existing law, the state specifically licenses only those agencies that collect fees from workers, including, for example, a recruiter for top white-collar jobs.
Most temporary agencies charge clients, not workers. These agencies now just have to annually register with the state, but they don't have to be licensed.
Monica Halas, lead lawyer for Greater Boston Legal Services, told legislators that temporary employees often are not given key terms and conditions of work.
She said the bill is aimed at curbing abuses. She referred to the attorney general's recent indictment of the owner of a Lowell staffing company for allegedly misrepresenting job classifications to obtain lower rates for state-mandated workers compensation.
"The bill streamlines and simplifies an arcane statute, leveling the playing field for all employment agencies," Halas testified. "Whether the fee is paid by the worker or by the client employer, all staffing agencies will play by common rules."
Lower-paid workers, including those in construction or in warehouses, hired through temporary staffing agencies often aren't paid fairly and have problems obtaining workers’ compensation, according to a study released last month by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Corinn Williams, executive director of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts in New Bedford, testified that many temporary workers are seriously injured due to lax regulations and are often paid in cash to avoid overtime and other wage laws.
"I have watched with alarm the problems resulting from the growth of an unregulated low-wage staffing industry," Williams said.
But Scott said existing labor laws already protect the rights of workers, and more regulation will only hurt businesses that already play by the rules. "The people who aren't obeying the law will not change," Scott said.
