Temporary Employment

[Cleveland622]

I am in Ohio.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I have been working through a temporary agency for a large corporation for a little over two years now. I have been in the same position within the same deparment and pretty much doing the same work the entire period. Having grown tired of waiting for the company to offer permanent employment, in June 2000, I sought work elsewhere. I was offered a position at another company and gave my notice to the company for whom I was temping. After two long discussions with the company in which I was assured that everything that could be done to hire me permanently was being done (with care given to not promising me anything) I was given a raise and stayed on with the company as a temp. In October 2000, a supervisor of mine at the company gave me a copy of a job announcement to proofread and make suggestions on since it was for the position I was filling. I was told it would be posted and that when it was it would be posted as having a preferred candidate (me). I was also given an employment application and told to submit it to HR as soon as possible. I gave HR my application on October 31. As of January 8, 2001, the job announcement has not been posted and I have not received any indication of where it stands and where my application stands. Obviously, this is a permanent position being filled by a temporary indefinitely.

I plan on leaving the temp agency/job assignment as soon as I find another position. In the meantime, it has been suggested that I contact an attorney about the situation and possible suit against the company for employee misclassification. Would doing so be prudent or a waste of time? I'm not after money - I just want to make the company accountable for their actions.

Thank you in advance.

 

[buddy2bear]

Well, I don't know exactly what to tell you, except the following:

"On September 13, the General Counsel [of the National Labor Relations Board] issued a memorandum directing regional directors to apply a broader standard than the NLRB currently uses when analyzing whether a staffing firm and its client are joint employers of staffing firm employees . . ." (NLRB Watch, Vol 4, No. 6). This, of course, would apply to potential bargaining units in union organizational campaigns, however, you might want to read it FYI. If your company was unionized and as a temp you are not a member of the union, then I think you could make an argument about joining the union as an employee of the company. However, in a non-unionized setting, I am not quite sure how it would help. You can find it at http://www.nlrbwatch.com.

The main reason employers use temporary agencies is so that they are not responsible for the payment of benefits, as well as not having to go through the interview, hiring, etc., process and the fact that they can keep "trying" out people until they get the one they want. The company also might not be making you permanent because your temp agency wants too much money to buy out your "contract" with them.

As for suing, well, what would you sue for? Refusal to hire -- not against the law unless it involves discrimination.