By Stephen Appezzato
Last month marked a new chapter for New Jersey’s workforce as comprehensive labor rights and protections for temporary workers were signed into law.
On Feb. 6 Gov. Phil Murphy passed the Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights, outlining a detailed array of mandates for temporary help service firms and third-party clients.
The legislation (NJ A1474/S511) was introduced a little over a year ago to address pay and labor protection disparities that temporary workers may face. Within its text, NJ A1474 cited national data that deemed full-time temp agency workers earned 41% less than conventional full-time employees, and that the temporary labor force is disproportionately comprised of Black and Latino workers in comparison to the general workforce.
“Recent studies and a survey of low-wage temporary laborers themselves find that, generally, these workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse of their labor rights, including unpaid wages, failure to pay for all hours worked, minimum wage and overtime violations, unsafe working conditions, unlawful deductions from pay for meals, transportation, equipment, and other items, as well as discriminatory practices,” the bill states.
The legislation was delayed on multiple occasions due to final vote postponements as well as a conditional veto from the governor in September. In the months leading up to its passage, staffing agencies and business advocacy groups, such as the New Jersey Staffing Alliance, contested the legislation, deeming it financially detrimental to the staffing industry and the state’s economy at large. Labor activists persisted, though, helping move the legislation over the line.
“For many years, we have suffered injustices, discrimination, and wage theft. Winning this bill of rights will protect temp workers in New Jersey. Now’s the time for temp workers to have respect, dignity and their voices heard,” said Reynalda Cruz, a former temporary worker who is currently an organizer for New Labor, a labor rights advocacy group based in New Jersey.
“There’s been little oversight of temp agencies over the years; it shouldn’t be a race to the bottom when it comes to essential temp workers that make the economy run,” said New Labor’s executive director Louis Kimmel. “This bill is about creating some baseline standards and oversight and New Jersey as a leader when it comes to providing temp workers protections.”
Currently in New Jersey there are more than 127,000 temporary workers who utilize approximately 100 licensed temp agencies. There are also an unknown number of unlicensed hiring firms that operate without state oversight. The Two River Times reached out to multiple temporary help service firms in Monmouth County for comment but did not receive any responses.
“New Jersey has long been at the forefront of employee rights across the nation and the Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights (S511) continues that tradition,” noted Rahool Patel, an employment law attorney at Ansell Grimm & Aaron, P.C. in Ocean. “Under the new law, temporary workers in certain occupations, such as food service, construction, and maintenance, will have greater protections, including the right to receive the same average rate of pay and benefits as a permanent employee performing the same or similar work,” he said.
Some of the key clauses within the comprehensive legislation dictate:
• Temporary work agencies must adhere to new record keeping and transparency standards with workers, such as providing documents to laborers in their native language and clearly itemizing all paycheck deductions.
• All temporary work agencies must register with and be approved by the state. Lists of approved firms as well as suspended and revoked firms will be published by the New Jersey Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development.
• Temporary help service firms, third party clients and contractors cannot retaliate against workers for making complaints or testifying against their employers.
• Temporary laborers cannot be charged fees by their employers for transport to or from work sites, or from cashing a paycheck issued by the temp firm.
• Pay deductions for meals or equipment cannot reduce workers’ hourly wage to below the state or federal minimum wage, whichever is greater.
Perhaps the most compelling clause within the bill targets the aforementioned pay disparities between temporary workers and their conventional full-time counterparts. The bill requires temporary employees assigned by temp agencies to clients be paid at the same rate as a permanent employee if they are performing “the same or substantially similar work.”
While this clause can allow for different opinions and interpretations – particularly to what comprises the “equal skill, effort and responsibility” noted in the legislation – this is the first time that such “equal pay for equal work” mandates have been codified for temporary workers in New Jersey.
Temporary help service firms or third-party clients found in violation of the bill’s stipulations are subject to financial penalties and further investigation.
The article originally appeared in the March 2 – 8, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
