New Jersey’s new law regulating the temporary worker industry won’t fully take effect until August, but staffing agencies in the state have already mounted a legal challenge to stop it.
The agencies argue in a federal lawsuit the requirements are onerous and could “ultimately destroy” the industry.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed the new law in February after years of advocacy by labor and immigrant groups, who said temp workers were subjected to unsafe working conditions and sometimes received below-minimum-wage pay, after deductions from their paychecks for meals and travel.
The bill requires staffing agencies to give workers basic information about the work they are dispatched to do, prohibits them from charging workers for transportation to job sites and in some cases could require better pay.
But staffing agencies have opposed the new regulations since the bill’s inception, and days before part of the law was set to take effect earlier this month, the New Jersey Staffing Alliance, the American Staffing Association and the New Jersey Business and Industry Association filed the lawsuit, calling the measure unconstitutional and seeking a temporary restraining order.
“We feel it is so heinous and so many provisions of it are unlawful and vague that it’s going to put a number of companies, staffing companies, out of business,” Steven Harz, the lead attorney representing the staffing agencies said. He said the agencies agree with the intent of the law to improve the industry, but said the ways it tries to accomplish that will have detrimental effects on agencies and workers alike.
The part of the law that went into effect this month requires a staffing agency to tell a temporary worker via a written form — both in English and the language the worker speaks — where they will be working, how much they will get paid, the length of the assignment, whether they need any special clothing and whether they will be given protective gear or training by the third-party…
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