An Act concerning employment and protection of temporary laborers, supplementing Title 34 of the Revised Statutes, and amending P.L.1989, c.331.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
C.34:8D-1 Findings, declarations.
1. The Legislature finds and declares:
a. At least 127,000 individuals work for temporary help service firms, sometimes referred to as temp agencies or staffing agencies, in New Jersey. Approximately 100 temporary help service firms with several branch offices are licensed throughout the State. Moreover, there are a large, though unknown, number of unlicensed temporary help service firms that operate outside the purview of law enforcement.
b. Recent national data indicate that the share of Black and Latino temporary and staffing workers far outstrips their proportion of the workforce in general. In addition to a heavy concentration in service occupations, temporary laborers are heavily concentrated in the production, transportation, and material moving occupations and manufacturing industries. Further, full-time temporary help service firm workers earn 41 percent less than workers in traditional work arrangements, and these workers are far less likely than other workers to receive employer-sponsored retirement and health benefits.
c. Recent studies and a survey of low-wage temporary laborers themselves find that, generally, these workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse of their labor rights, including unpaid wages, failure to pay for all hours worked, minimum wage and overtime violations, unsafe working conditions, unlawful deductions from pay for meals, transportation, equipment, and other items, as well as discriminatory practices.
d. This act is intended to further protect the labor and employment rights of these workers.
C.34:8D-2 Definitions.
2. As used in P.L.2023, c.10 (C.34:8D-1 et al.):
Commissioner means Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development, or a designee of the commissioner.
Director means Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs in the Department of Law and Public Safety, or a designee of the Director.
Employ means to suffer or permit to work for compensation, including by means of ongoing, contractual relationships in which the employer retains substantial direct or indirect control over the employee's employment opportunities or terms and conditions of employment.
Employer means any person or corporation, partnership, individual proprietorship, joint venture, firm, company, or other similar legal entity who engages the services of an employee and who pays the employees wages, salary, or other compensation, or any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.
Hours worked means all of the time that the employee is required to be at the employees place of work or on duty. Nothing in P.L.2023, c.10 (C.34:8D-1 et al.) requires an employer to pay an employee for hours the employee is not required to be at the employees place of work because of holidays, vacation, lunch hours, illness, and similar reasons. Designated classification placement means an assignment of a temporary laborer by a temporary help service firm to perform work in any of the following occupational categories as designated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor: 33-90000 Other Protective Service Workers; 35-0000 Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations; 37-0000 Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations; 39-0000 Personal Care and Service Occupations; 47-2060 Construction Laborers; 47-30000 Helpers, Construction Trades; 49-0000 Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations; 51-0000 Production Occupations; 53-0000 Transportation and Material Moving Occupations; or any successor categories as the Bureau of Labor Statistics may designate.
Person means any natural person or their legal representative, partnership, corporation, company, trust, business entity, or association, and any agent, employee, salesman, partner, officer, director, member, stockholder, associate, trustee, or beneficiary of a trust thereof.
Temporary laborer means a person who contracts for employment in a designated classification placement with a temporary help service firm. Temporary laborer does not include agricultural crew leaders who are registered under the federal Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. s.1801 et seq., P.L.1971, c.192 (C.34:8A-7 et seq.), or P.L.1945, c.71 (C.34:9A-1 et seq.).
Temporary help service firm means any person or entity who operates a business which consists of employing individuals directly or indirectly for the purpose of assigning the employed individuals to assist the firm's customers in the handling of the customers' temporary, excess or special workloads, and who, in addition to the payment of wages or salaries to the employed individuals, pays federal social security taxes and State and federal unemployment insurance; carries workers compensation insurance as required by State law; and sustains responsibility for the actions of the employed individuals while they render services to the firm's customers. A temporary help service firm is required to comply with the provisions of P.L.1960, c.39 (C.56:8-1 et seq.).
Third party client means any person who contracts with a temporary help service firm for obtaining temporary laborers in a designated classification placement. Third party client does not include the State or any office, department, division, bureau, board, commission, agency, or political subdivision thereof that utilizes the services of temporary help service firms.
C.34:8D-3 Temporary help service firm, statement provided, time of dispatch, information, certain.
3. a. Whenever a temporary help service firm agrees to send a person to work as a temporary laborer in a designated classification placement, the temporary help service firm shall provide the temporary laborer, at the time of dispatch, a statement, in writing in English and in the language identified by the employee as the employees primary language, containing the following items on a form approved by the commissioner, in a manner appropriate to whether the assignment is accepted at the temporary help service firms office, or remotely by telephone, text, email, or other electronic exchange:
(1) the name of the temporary laborer;
(2) the name, address, and telephone number of:
(a) the temporary help service firm, or the contact information of the firms agent facilitating the placement;
(b) its workers compensation carrier;
(c) the worksite employer or third party client; and
(d) the Department of Labor and Workforce Development;
(3) the name and nature of the work to be performed;
(4) the wages offered;
(5) the name and address of the assigned worksite of each temporary laborer;
(6) the terms of transportation offered to the temporary laborer, if applicable;