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by dsfyu404ed
3205 days ago
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I used to work in similar places. They suck. There's a reason people don't wear loose fitting clothing around machinery though. A lot of the author's complaints are just part for the course in these kinds of environments. Low margin industries suck in general. The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. Obviously there's temp agencies that cater directly to this but the problem is on the demand side. Some companies want to treat people badly and they can use temp agencies to do it. I know people who have done very well (or as well as you can for those kinds of jobs) at temp agencies. Employers can use a temp agency and if they like the temp(s) they get they can direct hire the temp(s) and cut out the middle man. This doesn't happen when your entire workforce is temps though. |
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The problem is worse than that. Companies are providing insufficient worker trainings/protection to save money and hiding behind a temp agency for any consequences of that decision. That way, when they get inevitably get sued, the temp agency can declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the plant reassigns the contract to a "new" company who then hires most of the same workers.
Here's how it works:
- A holding company owns the factory and everything in it (equipment, etc). Skilled labor (technicians, etc.) work for this company. This is also the company that is most likely to be a subsidiary or joint venture of a publicly traded company that you've heard of.
- An operating company leases the factory from the holding company with the goal of manufacturing something (but often something that the parent company wants). The plant managers are probably the only people who work for this company.
- The operating company hires a temp agency to staff the line.
- The temp workers are employed by the agency to work the line.
- If a worker gets hurt, the temp agency can declare bankrupcy. Temp agencies have few capital assets to go after, so even if you win, you're not likely to get much.
- Even if you can somehow get the operating company included in the suit for negligent oversight, it too has very little in the way of assets.
- The holding company (where the real assets exist) is protected by several layers of liability.
- The publicly traded company is out of the loop entirely, but still gets cheap products to sell at their stores. Risk is transferred to workers in order to save money.