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. 2022 Apr 22;19(9):5112.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095112.

Health Equity and Worker Justice in Temporary Staffing: The Illinois Case

Linda Forst  1 , Tessa Bonney  1
Affiliations

Health Equity and Worker Justice in Temporary Staffing: The Illinois Case

Linda Forst et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Temporary staffing has an increasing role in world economies, contracting workers and dispatching them to work for leasing employers within countries and across borders. Using Illinois as a case study, co-authors have undertaken investigations to understand the occupational health, safety, and well-being challenges for workers hired through temporary staffing companies; to determine knowledge and attitudes of temp workers and temp staffing employers; and to assess temporary staffing at a community level. Temporary staffing workers in Illinois tend to be people of color who are employed in the most hazardous sectors of the economy. They have a higher rate of injury, are compensated less, and often lose their jobs when injured. Laws allow for ambiguity of responsibility for training, reporting, and compensation between the staffing agency and host employers. Our findings illustrate the ways in which principles of fairness and equity are violated in temporary staffing. Shared responsibility for reporting injuries, providing workers' compensation insurance, and training workers should be mandated in law and required in contractual language between temporary staffing and host/contracting employers. Monitoring, enforcement, and adjustment of the law based on experience are required to "promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.

Keywords: occupational health equity; occupational health surveillance; occupational injury; precarious work; temporary services sector; temporary staffing; worker justice; worker well-being; workers’ compensation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Community concerns that temporary staffing is rooted in racism.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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