Temping NYC (tm) News Archives

[Critter]

Labor Ready Corrects Union Misstatements
TACOMA, Wash., Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Labor Ready, Inc. (NYSE: LRW)
President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Sambataro stated today that the
Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO's recent press release
contained unfounded insinuations and misrepresented the facts. Sambataro made
these corrections:

-- Most Labor Ready temporary employees either have their own vehicles,
use public transportation or carpool with co-workers. A small
percentage use company-provided transportation to get to and from job
sites. Although not material enough to be reported separately, the net
cost to the company of providing this service is included in the
company's financial statements.
-- Like many companies, Labor Ready has a number of wholly owned
subsidiaries, all of which are included and consolidated in the
company's audited financial statements, in accordance with generally
accepted accounting principles.
-- The circumstances of Glenn Welstad's unauthorized loan of $3.5 million
were addressed in a press release dated July 3, 2000.
-- As a convenience, Labor Ready offers workers the option of receiving
their net pay in cash through the company's patented cash dispensing
machines (CDMs), which provide control mechanisms for avoiding fraud
and other abuse. CDM revenue and expenses are immaterial for financial
reporting purposes.
-- The Washington and Ohio workers compensation audits were addressed in a
press release issued by Labor Ready on June 23, 2001. The company has
accrued all workers compensation-related liabilities appropriate under
applicable accounting standards.
-- Labor Ready continues to report same-store sales results for its
branches. Labor Ready has historically not reported numbers of
man-hours billed. If and when such a statistic would provide material
and meaningful benefit, the company will disclose it as appropriate.

"We have complete confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our
financial statements and disclosures, as does our outside auditing firm,
Arthur Andersen, which issued unqualified opinions on our behalf," said
Labor Ready Board Member and Audit Committee Chairman Carl W. Schafer.
Added Sambataro, "Labor Ready is proud to put nearly 700,000 people to
work annually. In these difficult economic times, our mission of putting
people to work becomes more important than ever. We are able to provide
thousands of jobs every day, jobs which help men and women make it through a
layoff or transition to full-time employment."
Operating in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and the United Kingdom,
Labor Ready is the nation's leading provider of temporary manual labor to the
light industrial and small business markets.

CONTACT: Steve Cooper, Chief Financial Officer, +1-253-680-8213, or
Stacey Burke, Director of Public Relations, +1-253-680-8291, both of
Labor Ready, Inc.

[Critter]

NY Times Classified Section
Back in the 80's when I lived on Long Island, I would look at the Sunday Classified Section and the whole first page would be full of gigantic ads from Temp Agencies Like Solo/Comospolitan, Essex and others.

Gradually over the years, the gigantic full length ads disappeared but the first page of the NYT classified section was still always full of temp agency advertising.

Now today, 1/7/01, not only are there not enough temp agency ads to fill the first page of the Times Sunday Classified, but the times has actually added a weekly column to the first page of the section titled "Job Market". This seems to indicate that the times does not expect there to be enough large ads to fill the first page of the classified section for some time to come.

While the lack of ads may be due to companies not hiring, it was reported some time ago that many companies were moving their advertising money from newspaper classifieds to internet job sites, like monster.com and hotjobs.com.

[Critter]

Secret OT Scheme Settlement
Reliable Temp source claims that a certain agency is in the process of paying out settlements relating to the way it calculated and paid OT over the years. The agency denies it, but I don't know why the temp would make it up.

If the story is true (and I believe that it is) I should be getting a shit load of money for Christmas.

Further, me thinks that this little procedure for calculating OT to pay to temps came from Staffing HQ and that all in the association were using the same procedure.

Essentially
After 40 hours temp agencies are required to pay temps over time at time and one half. Now, the nature of temping is that temps can work for different clients at different rates during the week in which they are eligible to recieve over time pay.

There was a practice by this agency to claim that the OT paymenent at time and one half should be made at a RATE which was the "Averge Pay Rate" for the temp for the week (rather than at the pay rate which was in effect on the 41st hour).

Let's say you have worked all week for this agency and you are on a job on second shift working at $25.00 per hour when over time kicks in. Instead of paying over time based on $25.00/hr, the agency calculated your "Average Pay Rate" for the week, based on the various rates you were paid by various clients on various shifts, and paid over time at THAT "Average Pay Rate".

According to my source, a group of temps complained about this "Average Pay Rate" thing and are now being given settlements. Something which the agency had denied to me (would an agency actually lie to me?)

My impression is that the agency in question got the idea of this practice from the "association" and maybe everyone in the association was using the practice and now owe temps money.

[Critter]

EMPLOYEE - Dumb Bitch With Only One John

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both had articles yesterday, 12/18/01, on proposed legislation to prevent another “ENRON”. Enron is a large energy company that filed for bankruptcy and whose stock has tanked.

What makes Enron so spectacular to spark government legislation is that a lot of EMPLOYEES had their whole lives tired up around Enron and Enron’s stock price. Enron employees had their investments, 401(k), income, healthcare, etc. all tried up with Enron and the price of Enron’s stock.

Now when you are a temp or consultant, you know that you have to take charge of your retirement, healthcare, etc. But when you are a dumb bitch with only one John (i.e. an employee) you think that all you have to do is let your sugar daddy take care of every thing for you.

[Critter]

Background Check
An item at Hobjobs.com claims that employers are sending job applicants' fingerprints to the FBI to check their backgrounds before hiring.

I once had a conversation with a co-worker who had just been approved for a top secret security clearance with "access". Top Secret is the highest fahking security clearances there is and "with access" goes BEYOND merely top secret.

A top secret clearance is only obtained after some idiot government workers (at all levels of the government) go to every where you worked and lived and ask aholes what kind of person you were. can you really have every fahking idiot you happened to live next door to running off at the fahking mouth.

Well, the government went through this whole big deal investigation of my co-worker (costing thousands of fahking dollars) and they DID NOT find out that the guy was born in Vietnam. My co-worker told me that it wasn't until he went to the "VAULT" to finalize his TS paperwork that it was noticed that he was Asian and that he informed the "Vault" people that he was born in Vietnam.

Be Afraid Be Very Afraid - Job References
The NY Times reports that it is becoming difficult for job applicants to get references from former employers and that former employers are becoming more reluctant to give references. The Times reported this as if it is a bad thang.

I say good, the more people there are who are afraid of running off at the fahking mouth the better.