Temporary Work, Permanent Abuse: How Big Business Destroys Good Jobs
NESRI’s new collaborative report with the National Staffing Workers Alliance captures how big brand name companies are degrading good blue-collar jobs by replacing these once-good jobs with abusive, permanent temp jobs. Based on 13 focus groups with industrial temps in the metro areas of Chicago and Boston and ports of Southern California and New Jersey, the report exposes the devastating human impact of this systemic corporate practice and highlights how temp workers are leading the way to fix the loopholes in our broken workplace enforcement systems and restore rule of law at work for all workers.
Key findings:
- Number of workers who prefer temp jobs: 0
- Percentage of workers who ever had a temp job lead to being directly hired: 20
- Average number of years that workers have been employed through temp agencies: 6
- Length of the most common “temp” assignment: 3 years
- Percentage by which a temp worker is more likely than a permanent direct hire to get hurt at work: 100
- Average annual income of a temp worker: $13,966 (well below federal poverty line for household of two)
- Percent of temps experiencing wage theft: 74
- Chance a temp worker has been fired for speaking up about workplace abuse: 1 in 2
Find out more about the National Staffing Workers Alliance and read the full report.
