| Working the Temps: America's Legal Sweetshop by Anthony Streckfuss (The following is a reprint from the Magazine "Whats Up" which is a local magzinz published in St. Louis Mo. for the St. Louis Homeless community. For futher reading of this magazine click on the link above.) What started as a well-intentioned concept to solve a labor shortage has grown complacent and uncaring to the needs of the temporary laborer it initially tried to help. The problems in the temporary employment industry cannot be traced to a single company or individual, but can be attributed to a general decay of social and corporate responsibility. The erosion of rights for the lowest-paid employment group in the nation falls disproportionately on the homeless population. It is not a matter of right or wrong, but a matter of manipulation. The industry of temporary laborers is rooted in the illegal immigration of the late twentieth century. Immigrants came to America seeking a better way of life for themselves and their families. This labor force soon found employment in orchards and vegetable fields, and standing on street corners to offer themselves as performers of demeaning labor at wages below what others would consider acceptable. Like the American sweatshops of the nineteenth century, when women and children worked for pennies, the temporary laborer of today is barely earning a living. While there are exceptions, many temporary laborers are often undereducated, untrained, unaware employees from the streets. Shoved aside by industries, unions, legislators and local communities, these victims have few other places to find employment. When the exploitation of the employee is the cornerstone of profit, with little regard for the employee financial well-being or human rights, there is a breakdown of the social elements that distinguish man from the lower life forms. If industry fails to display compassion, and continues exploitation of its human capital, it will further extend the rift of class distinction in the social fabric. Even in St. Louis, profit and greed are culpable for directing the actions of industry to acquire labor from a disenfranchised workforce. St. Louis recently instituted a living wage ordinance that set minimum wage at $8.84 when health insurance is provided by the employer and at $10.76 per hour when it is not. The temporary labor force in St. Louis is not guaranteed either wage, and hiring policies deny health insurance or job security in most cases. To be guaranteed a living wage by the ordinance the employer must be contracted for work by the city for over $50,000 and/or business development subsides for over $100,000. Companies that are not forced to provide a living wage and fail to provide fair compensation for the labor they receive place the lower working class at a disadvantage in securing better paying jobs. This places a greater burden on society to provide tax dollars for food stamps and other assistance, and the employment agencies to continue paying and processing unemployment claims. There are 71 cities in the United States that have a living wage such as the one in St. Louis. Santa Cruz, California is at the top of the heap in paying $11.00 per hour with health insurance, $12.00 per hour without. Milwaukee, Wisconsin is number seventy-one in offering $6.05 per hour, adjusted annually by federal poverty guidelines for a family of three. St. Louis is left in ever-so-comfortable mediocrity. Temporary agencies have been operating for decades. They take a person application or resume and offers that person skills to the company/client who needs to fill a job opening. Agencies hire the employee and require the applicant to sign an agreement not to offer their services directly to the employer without first notifying the temporary agency. The temporary agency will absorb approximately one third of the hourly wage charged to the client in exchange for administrating their temporary laborer services. These agencies have profited from the massive expansion of the available labor pool in recent times, including the out-of-work poor and homeless worker. The temporary laborer has become a gold mine for the ruthless, greedy opportunist feeding off of the underprivileged in today society. The temporary agencies have been able to encourage their client to hire their services at a higher rate of pay then they themselves would pay. The agency performs the employee screening and testing to qualify each person for employment, their basic governmental required needs (if hired), workman compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, the withholding of taxes, and if the employee qualifies, health and disability insurance. Employee benefits are accumulated for the worker by the temporary agency, thus saving industry employers significant employment costs. The temporary agencies market their services overwhelming to the poor and homeless. They take advantage of the fact that many of their employees will, in most cases, not work long enough to enjoy these benefits?before they are fired or unable to continue working due to lack of transportation, medical events, or permanent housing. An employee working with a temporary agency starts their day by arriving at the office of the agency before most of the labor force is out of bed. If given an assignment one must choose to accept or refuse it. It is a question of what type of work the employee hopes to receive and how well it pays. The temporary laborer must report to their mployer de la jour?with the regular work force, and if the temporary agency requires it, return to the agency at the end of the day to turn in their job ticket with the hope of getting paid. They finally return home to get rest for the next day - just to start it all over again. While working for Labor Ready, I have gotten up as early as 4 AM to travel 50 blocks by bus from Kingshighway and Delmar to Cherokee and Iowa, to get to my job assignment. I returned by bus 37 blocks to Olive and Sarah, just 11 blocks from my start, to complete the assignment. At the end of the day, I would travel back to Labor Ready to turn in my ticket, get paid, and cash my pay voucher using Labor Ready's ATM. I finally return home, as late as 7 PM, to eat, clean up and get to sleep. The monetary value of a day earned with Labor Ready or Action Temp, when I received an assignment for 8 hours at $6.50/hour was $52.50 before taxes. Remove the taxes and I have $45.50. Remove my bus fare, if used, which could reach as high as $9.00 per day, and I would walk away with approximately $36.50. If I would get the same pay for 5 days on the same assignment I would take home approximately $182.50. Throughout the process I would have exhausted approximately 75 hours of my time to earn this meager income. The only recourse to increase your weekly take-home pay and reduce the hours spent doing so, is to invest in a vehicle. One can purchase a Metro pass at $14.50 per week or $45.00 per month, which is difficult at best with such meager earnings. While working for Action Temp I was placed on an assignment and hired out to Centaur Building Services for $5.50 per hour who in turn used us at the Savvis Center to tear down and set up between events. Action Temp could not muster enough employees to fill the assignment; the agent loaded all available personnel into the company van; offered us an additional $0.50 per hour and took off to local homeless shelters soliciting men to fill the assignment. When this failed, he drove the downtown streets soliciting men off the sidewalks offering them work. Does it make sense to have such unscreened labor in this public venue in these troubled times? Action Temp did not provide restroom facilities or have a drinking fountain available for their temporary personnel awaiting assignments. The waiting room is sparse and cramped, the only other amenities other than a few chairs, is a soda machine, leaving some people sitting for hours at a time awaiting an assignment. Labor Ready provides restrooms, free coffee, large waiting area, television, pay soda machine and cool water. While at the end of the day no better off, the Labor Ready employee is far more comfortable while waiting for what the future may hold. Action Temp, even though conducting business on the same plane as Labor Ready, falls short on the humanities. Situated in between two homeless shelters, Action Temp does not have to work hard to impress its prospective workers. The temporary labor companies web sites address company profits and their outsourcing capabilities for prospective clients. There is hardly a mention of the benefits for their laborers other than promising slightly above poverty wages. Why would the leaders of industry, legislative law, judicial law and local governments support a living wage that would interfere with the blood-sweat-and-tears profits gained off of their lower income citizens when they themselves may benefit? Labor laws protecting the employee from basic violations such as sex, age, race, disability discrimination etc. are non-existent in the temporary agencies. An employer can do what they want, when they want, to whomever they want and it seems nothing will be done about it. If they were to commit one of the above crimes, and charges were filed, their attorney on retainer is ready to fight you and the government for years. One must wait for what they should never have lost. It takes two to three years to accomplish what temporary labor power brokers can do in seconds. The courts and laws are designed for the employer and gives them the power (through time) to destroy you because they have the resources to wait out the employee. It is for these reasons that we need a Worker Bill of Rights. It is the employers that don want the employee to be informed of their employee legal rights; if that weren the case they would inform their employees of the Weingarten Rights Act, which is similar to the Miranda Rights. Miranda Rights apply when there is a criminal charge, protecting your right not to incriminate yourself. Weingarten Rights exist to allow a union of co-workers to represent an employee in any decision or procedure that might impact his or her terms of employment. A law officer is obligated to inform you of your Miranda Rights. No employer is required to inform an employee of his or her Weingarten Rights. They must be asserted! If you feel your employer is asking questions that may impact your employment then read this statement. If this discussion could in any way lead to my being disciplined or terminated, or affect my personal working conditions, I request that my union (or other employee) representative, office, or steward be present at the meeting. Without representation, I choose not to answer any questions. They then permit the request or end their questioning of you. The Weingarten Rights Act is information all employees, union and nonunion alike, definitely need to know and exercise. Being employable or being employed is as valuable as the laborer perception of their self-worth, self-esteem and whether the agency is working in their best interest. How much are you worth? |
| LABOR UNDER FIRE [email protected] |
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| Full-Time, Part-Time, Contingent, Temporary, Labor Day Employment |
| Labor Under Fire does not give any form of legal advice but is offered as a means for an employee and/or employer to research labor problems present to a considered legal action. Labor Under Fire advises all employee's to contact a Labor lawyer, to obtain legal advise and/or guidance for any labor problems. Labor Under Fire conceders the employer to already to have an attorney on retainer. |
| WHATS UP MAGAZINE IS A ST. LOUIS STREET NEWS PUBLICATION DISTRIBUTED BY AND FOR THE HOMELESS AND DISADVANTAGED whatsupstl.com |
| "It is not a matter of right or wrong, it is not a matter of moral or immoral but a matter of manipulation'. Feb. 11, 2003 By Anthony M. Streckfuss |
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