The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants host employers and staffing agencies to work together to protect the safety of temporary workers. Host employers need to make sure workers are safe but should usually let staffing agencies take the lead in training and directing work to avoid being considered a joint employer.

Ensuring safety requires planning and good communication between host employers and staffing agencies. A host employer and a staffing agency might be liable for safety violations, even if the host employer isn't a joint employer.

"To protect temporary workers—and protect regular employees from unsafe conduct by temporary workers—employers should ensure that their workplace safety rules apply to temporary workers as well as regular employees," said Anthony George, an attorney with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in Denver.

For example, a rule that prohibits working on energized electrical equipment should apply to everyone on the employer's property, not merely to regular employees. Employers must prohibit specific unsafe conduct by temporary workers, he added.

If a temporary worker is employed by someone who is not an employee of the host employer, the host employer should address nonurgent safety violations with the staffing agency rather than with the worker directly, George said.

"But if the conduct creates an immediate danger, the employer should stop the conduct immediately, even though doing so might be construed as supervision and...

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