THE TEMP WORKER
FAIRNESS & SAFETY ACT

EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

It's time to end permatemping and protect workers from discrimination, sexual harassment, wage theft, injury, and retaliation.

What does the TWFSA do?

Makes Temp Work the Pathway to Stable, Quality Employment

Mandates equal pay for equal work
Creates an even playing field that will benefit responsible staffing agencies
Will result in low-wage temp workers making about $4 more per hour
Creates new tools to preserve the rights of workers after SCOTUS robbed workers of their protections under IL law by allowing arbitration agreements to become ubiquitous

Protects Workers & Closes Major Loophole in the Workers Rights Amendment

Improved training and safety requirements for equal or similar work to even the playing field for all workers
Protects unions by requiring that workers must be informed before being assigned to a worksite with a labor dispute and have a right to refuse that assignment without fear of retaliation
Prevents wage left, discrimination + retaliation by creating a whistleblower right of action

Adequately Funds & Expands Enforcement at No Expense to the Taxpayer

Updates fines and fees to fully fund enforcement of the law
Creates a whistleblower provision that expands enforcement capacity under the law
New whistleblower provision also creates a significant funding stream for enforcement

How the TWFSA Protects...

Black temp workers face discrimination, unfair pay, and unsafe working conditions:

Black workers are racially discriminated against and shut out from employment opportunities by discriminatory staffing agencies. According to the 2021 Opening the Door Report, 63% of staffing agencies engaged in discrimination, especially against Black applicants.
The Equal Right Center found that agencies offered lower quality jobs to Black applicants. The only jobs that agencies offered to Black applicants at an equivalent or higher pay rate than Latinx applicants were for less desirable jobs, including those that were lower-paying or on the second and third shift at factories. For jobs on those shifts, Black applicants received offers at almost twice the rate of their Latinx testing partners.

The Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act will help Black workers by:

Addressing racial discrimination in hiring by creating a whistleblower right of action to identify and address instances of employer abuse
Keeping Black workers safe by mandating improved training requirements for equal work
Enforcing the limits on “bondage fees” temp agencies charge companies to directly hire temps and thus freeing the workers from temp agency bondage
Ensuring that the law is applied evenly and predictably through a three pronged approach to enforcement.

Immigrant Temp Workers make up the majority of the temp workforce and experience serious labor violations:

According to a UIC School of Public Health study, temp workers generally earn 50-67% of the wages of workers who are directly hired by the client or host companies, and generally, they are not offered social benefits
84% experienced violations of health & safety rights and 74% experienced wage theft [source]
80% never had a temp job lead to direct hire position and the average length of employment for a "temp" worker is 6 years
47% who filed complaints with DOL or tried to improve working conditions and experienced retaliation

The Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act will support Immigrant Workers By:

Keeping immigrant workers safe by mandating improved safety & training requirements for equal work
Paying workers fairly by mandating Equal Pay for Equal Work
Enforcing the limits on “bondage fees” temp agencies charge companies to directly hire temps and thus freeing the workers from temp agency bondage
Ensuring that the law is applied evenly and predictably through a three pronged approach to enforcement.

Female Temp Workers face discrimination, sexual harassment, unfair pay, and unsafe working conditions:

Female temps are discriminated against and segregated similarly to other temp workers. Unlike male temps, they also face routine sexual harassment perpetrated by colleagues and managers who feel safe from repercussions. Examples include:
- Patricia, a 17-year old Mexican immigrant from Hanover Park had just arrived from Mexico when she was assigned by a local staffing agency to work at a nearby antenna factory. On her first day, the factory supervisor told her that if she liked her job, she needed to go with him to a hotel and invite some of her friends to come along. She refused even though she was promised an easy assignment if she complied. The next day, the temp agency called her in and encouraged her to comply with her predatory manager. When she still refused, she was told she no longer had a job and should leave.
- Two female temps from Waukegan who worked as assembly workers learned that the fork-lift jobs at their factory paid about 20 percent more than assembly-line work. They began training as fork-lift operators during their lunch periods. Once they finished the training, they applied at their temp agency for open fork-lift driver positions at the factory. Several weeks later, the temp agency hired several men to begin training for the same fork-lift jobs and eventually placed them in those positions. The agency told the women that the only positions they qualified for were the assembly jobs
A staffing agency that supplied a predatory manager with young, attractive women to his physical specifications [source]
Staffing agencies routinely discriminate on the basis of gender with code words to skirt regulation [source]

The Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act will support Female Temps By:

Creating a Whistleblower Right of Action to empower whistleblowers to act to stop abuse when it starts without having to wait on action by overburdened regulators & ensuring that class actions are able to be brought on behalf of female temps in cases of systemic abuse.
Keeping women workers safe by improving training requirements for equal work
Paying workers fairly by mandating Equal Pay for Equal Work and ensuring that temp work isn't a way around the Equal Pay Act.
Enforcing the limits on “bondage fees” temp agencies charge companies to directly hire temps and thus freeing the workers from temp agency bondage

Temp Work is a Major Loophole in the Worker's Right's Amendment and employers routinely use temp work to:

Undercut the prevailing wage with low wage temp workers who are never due a raise
Replace long-term employees with a workforce that can never accrue seniority
Undercut union demands on working conditions with an unorganized workforce that receives less training for the same work
Use an unorganized workforce that is less able to push back on routine workplace abuses and is less likely to file grievances
Staff worksites during a strike

The Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act will support Immigrant Workers By:

Protecting union prevailing wages by mandating Equal Pay for Equal Work
Mandating that temps be informed when being assigned as strikebreakers and allowed to refuse the assignment without repercussion
Enforcing the limits on “bondage fees” temp agencies charge companies to directly hire temps and thus freeing the workers from temp agency bondage
Ensure that unions have the ability to blow the whistle on illegal worksite practices with a "Whistleblower Right to Action"