Temporary Staffing and PWD
Temporary staffing agencies work with people with disabilities in the same way they work with people without disabilities. “The ADA did not impact our business dramatically. From inception, our company focused on what people can do in the work place. That is our business, and that is how we create shareholder value,” says Mitchell Fromstein, Manpower Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
The focus of the job placement process for all applicants is on individual abilities, job skills and interests. The staffing industry uses job assessment services, temporary job assignments and work skills training to help individuals with and without disabilities find their employment niche. These services provide job seekers with opportunities to build a work history, experience different types of jobs, and increase their employment marketability and earning potential through enhancement of work skills.
The following features used by staffing agencies result in effective job placement for all persons:
Individualized applicant assessment procedures
Focus on individual abilities, job skills and interests
Systematized skill assessments for a variety of tasks
Matching employee skills to workplace demands based on an assessment of local customer needs
Individualized job training
Providing accommodations as part of the placement process
EEOC Policy Guidance
There is a lack of clarity concerning whether the employer or the temporary staffing agency is responsible for paying for accommodating temporary employees with disabilities. The following EEOC policy guidance may assist in this area.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act Policy Guidance, issued September 20, 1991, (IN-917-002), addressed what constitutes an employment agency; how charges against employment agencies should be investigated; and what remedies can be obtained for Title VII violations by these agencies. This guidance concludes that Title VII covers employment agencies, as well as employers, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin.
EEOC’s policy guidance on the concepts of integrated enterprise and joint employer, issued May 6, 1987 (N-915) clarifies that the identity of the employer is based on economic realities of the relationship and extent of the party’s control over means and manner of an employee’s performance. Factors that can be used to determine economic realities and control are:
Level of skills required for the position
Location of the work
Duration of relationship of parties
Hiring party’s rights to assign additional projects to employee
Extent of employee’s discretion of how and how long to work
Method of payment
Whether hiring party is in business
Whether the work is part of hiring party’s regular business
Whether hiring party provide benefits
Whether hiring party deducts employment-related taxes.
EEOC’s enforcement guidance on the Application of the ADA to Contingent Workers Placed by Temporary Agencies and Other Staffing Firms, issued December 22, 2000 (www.eeoc.gov/docs/guidance-contingent.html)
EEOC’s enforcement guidance on the Application of EEO Laws to Contingent Workers Placed by Temporary Employment Agencies and Other Staffing Firms, issued December 3, 1997 (www.eeoc.gov/docs/conting.html)
Resources
Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC)
Technical Assistance: (800) 669-4000 (V) or (800) 669-6820 (TTY)
Documents: (800) 669-3362 (V) or (800) 669-3302 (TTY)
Website: http://www.eeoc.gov
Office of Disability Employment Policy
(202) 376-6200 (V),
(202) 376-6205 (TTY),
(202) 376-6219 (FAX)
Study by Peter Blanck, J.D., Ph.D., Professor of Law, Medicine and Psychology, and Director, Law Health Policy and Disability Center, University of Iowa, College of Law, “The Emerging Role of the Staffing Industry in the Employment of Persons with Disabilities: a Case Report on Manpower, Inc.,” 1998.