Florida workers with criminal records trapped by temp agencies, report finds

Hundreds of thousands Floridian workers with criminal records are driven to accept jobs at temporary staffing agencies, often with lower wages and no benefits, according to a new report. Former prisoners described feeling “disposable” after finding themselves stuck in temporary jobs, unable to obtain direct employment with companies. The temp industry has become “the default entry point after incarceration”, Beyond the Bars, a non-profit organization advocating for workers with criminal records, said. More than 70% of individuals coming home from prison in south Florida seek employment through a temp agency at some point within three years, according to field research published in the Temp Trap. Some 57% of respondents were unable to find a full-time job paying the minimum wage within a year of their release. Temp agencies and labor pools are often the only employers willing to hire workers with criminal records and provide the flexibility needed to accommodate state or county supervision, curfews, and mandatory parole or court appointments. These agencies profit by charging an employer a fee, while assuming the worker’s compensation and other risks and liabilities. They also often charge steep placement fees that serve as barriers for temp workers being hired permanently. “There are warehouses in Florida that are entirely staffed by temp workers. The management is hired by the host employer. The entire line staff is temped out,” said Maya Ragsdale, co-executive director of Beyond The Bars, and co-author of the report. “What it really does is it suppresses wages across the board.” Workers at temp agencies in construction earn about $6.47 less per hour, and temp workers in warehouses worker about $3.38 less per hour than permanent direct hires, the report said: equivalent to $13,458 and $7,030 in lost income per year, respectively. Around 6.2 million people in Florida – about 36% of the state’s population – have a criminal record. Over 164,000 people in Florida are under some form of state supervision, not including county supervision. On any given day, 157,000 people are incarcerated in Florida’s state prisons and another 55,763 people are incarcerated in Florida county jails. “Before I went to jail, I was a manager at Office Depot. When I came out, I couldn’t get the kind of jobs I had before,” Felix, a member of Beyond the Bars, who said received a packet listing temp agencies before they were released, told the authors of the report. “Probation required a paycheck, and I had court fees due. With better jobs closed off because of my record, I ended up at a temp and labor pool – doing construction, which I’d never done before.” “After incarceration, I was placed as a temp on a construction site and ended up working for the same company for nine years,” said Cam. “I did the same job as direct employees, sometimes even more, but because of my record, they never offered me a permanent position. No benefits, no security – just years of labor, only to be treated like I was disposable.” A 2022 survey of temp workers by the National Employment Law Project found 24% reported their employers engaged in some form of wage theft, 17% reported experiencing a work-related injury or illness, and 41% reported that they personally covered their own healthcare costs. In addition, 71% of temp workers reported experiencing some form of retaliation for raising workplace issues with management. Beyond the Bars is calling for changes to probation requirements; more stringent standards and regulations of temp agencies and host employers; improved protections and organizing rights for workers at temp agencies; expansion of training programs, apprenticeships, and union jobs; and a crackdown on abuse of subsidies of these temp systems. “One of the things that has been really challenging for members of our organization is that labor pools kind of pop up and close very regularly. We have done a survey of all the temp agencies in south Florida last year, and then this year, we took that same list and looked through it again, and only like 50% of them are still open,” said Ragsdale. “I think one of the key reasons is the fact they’re trying to avoid their insurance rates going up when there’s worker complaints.”