A group of temporary staffing agencies and their trade associations are asking a federal court to block enforcement of a new state law that governs how day laborers and temp workers are managed and paid.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Chicago, challenges several changes enacted this year to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act, a law originally passed in 2006 to bring those staffing agencies under state regulation.
That act applies to an estimated 650,000 workers in Illinois who are employed by companies that provide short-term labor in blue collar industries such as warehousing, light manufacturing and distribution facilities. Professional and clerical staffing services are exempt from the law.
Since its 2006 enactment, the law has required those staffing agencies to register with the Illinois Department of Labor. It also established minimum protections for employees of those firms such as a guarantee of at least four hours of pay whenever they are sent to an assignment.
During this year’s spring legislative session, state lawmakers enacted sweeping amendments to the law that imposed new mandates on staffing agencies and extended new protections to short-term workers.
One of the biggest changes is a requirement that after 90 days on an assignment, a temp worker is entitled to pay and benefits that are “not less than” those offered to comparable employees who are directly hired by the client company.
Another change requires staffing agencies to...
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