CUED

WORKPLACE SAFETY IN ATLANTA’S CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY:
INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE IN TEMPORARY STAFFING ARRANGEMENTS

June 2003
Chirag Mehta, Sara Baum, Nik Theodore and Lori Bush
UIC Center for Urban Economic Development
PDF Paper (311KB)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Data on workplace injuries, safety concerns, and provisions for safety equipment and job training suggest that workers supplied by temporary staffing agencies to building and construction contractors in the Atlanta metro area work in substandard safety conditions. Agency-supplied temps cite inadequate job training and insufficient provisions for safety equipment as reasons for their safety concerns. Temporary agency workers in Atlanta’s building and construction industry experience substandard safety conditions in part because non-standard employment arrangements between building contractors and temp agencies undermine the efficacy of regulatory forces designed to improve workplace safety standards. This study examines the working conditions experienced by temp workers supplied by temp agencies to building and construction contractors in the Atlanta metro area and examines factors that influence these conditions. The results of this study are based upon primary data collected via surveys of workers, temporary staffing agencies, and building and construction contractors in the Atlanta metro area. Researchers surveyed 301 building and construction contractors and 24 temp agencies. In person surveys of 100 workers and in-depth interviews with 11 workers were conducted during the same time period. The primary goals of this study include:

1. To document the extent to which building contractors in the Atlanta metro area use temporary staffing agencies to fill job assignments and to describe the segment of the staffing industry that supplies temporary construction workers;

2. To understand and analyze safety conditions for agency-supplied temps who work regularly in the construction industry; and

3. To investigate factors that explain why agency-supplied temps experience substandard safety conditions at construction worksites.

Key findings

1. Prevalence of agency-supplied temps in Atlanta’s building and construction industry.

For a significant segment of the industry, workers supplied by temporary staffing agencies form a large buffer workforce that is mobilized during peak periods.

•Workers supplied by temporary staffing agencies comprise 3 percent of the total construction workforce in the Atlanta area during peak construction periods.

•Almost 70 percent of the positions filled by agency-supplied temps were occupations such as clean-up, demolition, material handling, and ditch digging.

•The primary reason contractors reported using agency-supplied temps was to meet demand during peak periods.

•Only 10 percent of all temp agencies in the market are responsible for organizing the supply of temp workers to building and construction contractors.


2. Workplace safety conditions for agency-supplied temps.

Agency-supplied temps working in the building and construction industry experience relatively unsafe conditions.

•Twenty-three percent of survey respondents reported experiencing a serious injury in the year prior to being surveyed. Most injured workers did not receive any treatment or workers’ compensation for their injuries.

•Twenty-five percent of temp workers reported working in an unsafe construction job obtained through a temp agency in the prior year. Workers reported high levels of dust and working at unsafe heights without proper equipment as the most common hazards.

•Agency-supplied temps report having limited access to safety equipment. Twelve percent of respondents reported that temp agencies never provide safety equipment.

3. Safety conditions for agency-supplied temps and efficacy of the workplace safety regime in non-standard employment relationships.

The triangular employment arrangement between temp workers, temp agencies and building contractors confounds the system of accountability successfully enforced in standard employment relationships by a workplace safety regime – a system of safety-inducing incentives shaped by labor market forces, workers’ compensation insurance and occupational safety and health regulations. The temporary staffing industry fundamentally alters employment arrangements and, subsequently, may undermine the cause-and-effect relationship on which the regime depends.

•In the context of temp agency/client employer arrangements, the influence of labor market forces on workplace safety is substantially diminished because temp agencies shelter client employers from variable costs associated with increases in wages and labor turnover.

•Temporary staffing agencies shelter client employers from rising workers’ compensation insurance costs, thereby muting cost pressures that might also induce employers to improve workplace safety. In this way, the introduction of temp agencies into employment arrangements de-couples the cause-and-effect relationship between increased workers’ compensation costs and employers’ investments in workplace safety.

•Temp agencies complicate the enforcement process, weakening the effect of OSHA regulations on safety conditions for agency-supplied temps.

The survey of building contractors, temporary staffing agencies and temp workers was carried out during the 3rd quarter of 2002.

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