“Read this article and let me know what you think.”
That short directive, with no other editorializing, came in an email recently from Paul Phipps, the editor of Staffing Talk. The article he wanted me to read is called Undocumented Life: Staffing agencies offer a rough option when a regular job is lost.
The piece was written by María Inés Zamudio, of The Chicago Reporter, an investigative news organization that publishes a website and bimonthly magazine examining the political, economic and social issues of metro Chicago with a focus on race and poverty.
First of all, let me say I love investigative journalism. I believe there is real value in serving the underserved, and giving a voice to those who might not otherwise have one.
As for my reaction to the piece? Well, for sure it doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of the staffing business, beginning with the headline that denotes staffing jobs as being different (i.e., not as good) from “regular” jobs. And it uses a very broad brush in the body of the story. From a journalistic standpoint exclusively, I thought the reporting was sloppy and contained several unsubstantiated generalizations. However, they did a change a word in the original story following my email to the reporter and the editor. More on that later.
Yes, I did write an email kind of sticking up for the staffing industry. I also asked the reporter if she would share with me a data source, or sources, that would provide some affirmation and confirmation of some of the generalizations she stated as fact. I did not receive a reply. But here is my original email.
—-Beginning of email—
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 4:21 PM
Subject: Undocumented Indeed
Hi María,
I am one of the principal writers for Staffing Talk (www.staffingtalk.com), a blog site dedicated to exclusive coverage of the HR, recruiting and staffing space(s).
Our editor, Paul Phipps, sent me the link to your story and asked for “my reaction.” My reaction is, “Wow, what did a staffing agency do to you that you went looking for a proverbial pound of flesh?” At any rate, I am going to write a piece in Staffing Talk about your story, and wanted to ask you a couple of things.
First, a little background. According to the American Staffing Association, there are some 17,000 staffing firms with 35,000 offices in the U.S., and they put nearly three million people to work every day. There are also approximately seven million “undocumented immigrants” in this country.
With that many illegals in the country, and in the workforce, and that many people being put to work by staffing agencies, are there going to be people working who shouldn’t be? Of course. And I wouldn’t even hazard a guess at the number.
Are some staffing agency owners douchebags? For sure. Are others out and out crooks operating their business with the intent to cheat and defraud and take advantage? I suppose so, though I don’t think they are represented in any outsized way in relation to the general population. You also tend to read about those people in the paper eventually.
However, the vast majority of staffing agency owners I have met are small business people who are simply trying to survive with very small margins in a highly commoditized, highly competitive business, where those margins are constantly under attack and they are being squeezed from every conceivable direction.
Like you, I once held the notion that staffing agencies were a choice of last resort for both employee, as well as employer. That anyone who worked for, or with, a staffing agency simply had run out of “regular” options as you couch it.
That notion is outdated, to the the point of simply being inaccurate.
Some 66-percent of people who are employed by staffing agencies say flexible work time is important to them, and is one of the principal reasons they go the staffing agency route. Others like to”test drive” a company and so on.
Again, are there situations where workers are with a staffing agency not out of choice, but rather by necessity? Yes. Certainly. And workers without social security cards I’m sure feel like they are also missing some basic human rights, and are subject to cheating, harassment, etc., as outlined in your story.
But to say those things “are not unusual,” by attributing, but not actually quoting, someone who used to work at some unknown, unnamed staffing agencies seems a bit loose at best.
You say “staffing agencies charge for filling out applications, transportation and parking — among other things.”
Really? As a matter of fact? Every staffing agency? Because that’s how I read that line. How about inserting a qualifier, such as “some” staffing agencies do those things? They shouldn’t, but again, no doubt some do, and shame on them for taking advantage of people who feel they can’t say no to those things.
The next graph is the one I am most interested in asking about though, and there is an action item here. You write, staffing agencies “are liable for checking each worker’s work authorization. But most don’t. And most cases of abuse go unreported.”
Those are very broad, sweeping statements, and I am curious about your source material for those statements. Perhaps you could point me to some piece of research or government statistic you used to affirm that most (how many exactly?) staffing agencies don’t verify immigration status, as required by law, and punishable by five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In fact, I did a story last year about someone in your area who got busted. Clinton Perkins, who ran a pair of staffing agencies in Bensenville, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $465,718 for using illegal aliens to form his temporary worker labor pool in the Chicagoland area.
The Chicago office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is quite active, and I’m sure your statement that most staffing agencies fail to verify whether someone can legally work in this country will be news to them. That office issued this statement at the time of Perkins’ sentencing.
“Employers in all industries and locations must comply with the nation’s immigration laws if we are to have an effective immigration enforcement strategy in this country. ICE is committed to ensuring that employers are held accountable for maintaining a legal workforce. The goal of our enforcement effort is two-fold — reduce the demand for illegal employment and protect job opportunities for the nation’s lawful workforce.”
Are they able to catch and prosecute every unscrupulous staffing agency owner? No. But every single staffing agency owner knows they are subject to surprise visits from ICE at any time, and that if they have been sending undocumented workers to job sites, they can lose their business, their reputation, their bank account, as well as their freedom. That would serve as an incentive to me if I was a business owner.
I am not trying to pick on you in any way. As a longtime journalist, I believe wholly in the value of investigative reporting, and think that giving a voice to those who might now otherwise have one, such as Manuel, the subject of your staffing story, is a worthwhile reason for being.
But I also believe in fair, responsible, accurate journalism, and look forward to hearing about your research and statistics that formed the basis for your conclusions and generalizations for the staffing story.
Best,
David Gee for Staffing Talk
—-End of email—-
Okay, so as I said, I did not receive a reply from anyone. However, when I went to read the story again, just before writing this post, I notice they did change a word in the story. That line most staffing agencies do not check work authorization, has now been changed to many staffing agencies don’t check. A nuanced, but certainly important, difference. So my email must have resonated/registered on some level.
Now it’s your turn to sound off. What do you think of the original article?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m curious to know what the goal of the article is. Is it to explore how illegal workers are exploited? Because that’s already been done (read the book, see the movie; Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser). Is it to explore the seedy underbelly of the staffing world? Because after 10 years of personal experience (albeit in Canada not the US), I have to say that stories like these are the exception and not the norm.
I think that your e-mail was well-written and makes a lot of great points. It’s sad that neither the reporter nor the editor felt that it was worthy of a response.
I don’t know why there is a perception out there that staffing companies are evil entities. When in fact, we employ millions of people around the world, millions of people who otherwise may not have any employment or who would otherwise be underemployed.
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Having graduated with a Journalism degree in 2010 I can honestly say my professors would not have given that story a passing grade. She only had two sources for an outrageously unbalanced story. Where was the other side? A reporter is suppose to be unbiased.
Why not call a few agencies in the area and ask them about checking ID’s? And she talks about how hard it is for him to find another job …. He isn’t here legally obviously it’s a problem. Why didn’t she call the ICE about all these agencies and then have the scoop when they got fined? Now that would have made a good story.
No one likes being told they are wrong, but not responding to your e-mail just makes it look worse.
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The primary example referenced in the article made a career of working illegally. Get legal or go home. If you choose to work illegally you run the risk of illegal treatment. Can’t have it both ways. No story here for me.
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The goal of the original staffing slam article. Hmmm, that’s an interesting question. I didn’t think to ask that of the reporter in my email to her, but it’s a valid one. My guess is that she happened to meet this person she referenced in the article, felt sorry for him, thought he had been screwed over by the staffing agencies, and wanted to shine a light on that. What’s that you say? He is perhaps in the country illegally and isn’t eligible to work? Oh yeah. Forgot about that part.
Tiffany, thanks for weighting in on the tenets of the article from a strictly journalistic standpoint. The thing that I find kind of baffling and perplexing is that the reporter who wrote the story, as well as her editor, and also the publisher, all have very solid mainstream media (in this case daily newspaper) backgrounds and credentials. So they should have known better, and could have done better by this story. From a PR perspective, you are also right. Avoiding and evading the tough questions is never the preferred response.
And Jeannette, you really were very succinct in framing the story, or the non story as you put it. For someone who isn’t eligible to work in this country, who doesn’t have a social security number and so on, the reality is they are vulnerable to exploitation. As you say, that’s a risk you run, the price of doing business so to speak.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Wow! That article is outrageous! A majority of the article is written around, and on behalf of, an illegal immigrant! He doesn’t get paid for all of his hours?! Hmmm, like how us legal workers have pay taken out of our checks for social security benefits, unemployment, and taxes. He has savings?! How many legal Americans can afford to have savings? How many are in debt?
Illegal immigrants are taking jobs from legal workers because they are willing to take less, because they don’t have to pay property taxes, and local taxes, and state taxes, and federal taxes, because they don’t have a social security number.
Also, he had to pay $48 a week for transportation to work?! My husband drives himself to work and pays at least that much on gas. And then there’s maintenance on the car, and registration, and insurance, and inspections. How does a man complain about having to pay for transportation to work? Unless you’re walking to work, your going to have to pay for something.
He’s been in America too long. He’s complaining about stuff he doesn’t have the right to complain about.
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One of the things that stood out for me was using a source from Chicago Workers’ Collaborative. A quick check confirmed what I suspected, which is that this organization has a definite political agenda which includes immigration reform and ‘worker rights organizations’.
So a Union Organizing group has something negative to say about the Staffing Industry? I’m shocked.
I am befuddled that a simple story line: ‘Undocumented Worker has hard time finding work’ becomes an assault on an industry. When anyone starts an investigation of dirty companies (a Staffing company that ignores Worker Eligibility laws), they should not be surprised when they find the company is practicing other illegal/unethical behavior.
I’m not justifying the bad behavior, but let’s be honest: If you found out your accountant was embezzling from you, would you also be surprised that he/she wasn’t claiming the stolen money on their taxes? No. Because criminals commit crimes. It also doesn’t mean that all Accountants are crooked, either.
How is finding a select few companies in an industry dirty and declaring the entire industry dirty; different from pointing to a minority person convicted of a crime and saying all people in that minority are criminals?
A truly investigative piece would have targeted that company, gathered evidence and exposed them for prosecution. The problem is, it is clear the author isn’t interested in the complete legal operation of the Staffing Companies. Go ahead and hire illegal immigrants, but be fair with them. In other words, “Ignore the laws I disagree with, but follow the ones I do”.
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As a staffing company owner in the Chicago suburbs, I am used to attacks by uninformed people like Maria that are stuck in the past. I would argue that “most”, and certainly “many”, staffing companies are operating in a proper fashion due to the passing of the Illinois Day Labor Services Act, the legislation responsible for regulating staffing companies in Ms. Zamudio’s home state. To infer that any agency in Illinois could get away with charging a fee for applications, transportation, parking, or a host of other services is assinine and slanderous. The same Act provides additional enforcement of procedures for recordkeeping and ID verification, and is responsible for some of the incidents you noted in your email. On a positive note, I have to give credit to muckrakers and community organizers such as Ms. Zamudio, for without them the problems that plagued our industry never would have been brought to light. But globally, the generalizations in her story would have been more factual had she written it 10 years ago. Maybe she should change her career to a history reporter.
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Thanks for the insight into some specific laws in the state of Illinois, including the Illinois Day Labor Services Act. Scott, like you, I do share your appreciation for the role muckrakers and investigative journalists play. Of course they can get it wrong, there are plenty of instances and examples of that, but there are also lots of occasions when they perform a critical function paying attention to things most of society misses. I have never worked in the staffing industry, and my exposure to it has only been through my stint here at Staffing Talk. But the industry I have come to know a little bit about bears little resemblance to the picture that this article painted. I got kind of riled up reading the original article, and then responding to it with my email. My intent was/is not to disparage the reporter or her organization in any way, but merely to point out the flaws in the piece. I am glad others with much more knowledge about the industry also took offense, and that our effort to stand up and support the industry is being met with appreciation. Thanks all.
The article is written in generalizations….how many staffing firms did she speak with to gather this data??? This is what I find most upsetting in journalism. Those few that don’t report correctly. Their beliefs become facts. How irresponsible!
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The number of staffing firms the reporter from the original article spoke to is zero. That’s the point. She didn’t interview a single staffing firm in an attempt to determine whether this stuff she writes about is standard practice. And she did write in generalizations, using a single source. That single source is a union organizing organization, whom I sure has no agenda or bias. Thanks for the comment Jennifer.
I read the Chicago Reporter article, and felt my temperature boil. What that writer reported is **far** from the norm! What a great response from you, David!
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Thanks for the comment – and the support – Alexandra. It’s not that we think anyone elected us to speak for the staffing industry, but we do have a voice and a platform, and don’t share the views obviously of that reporter. We’re glad our efforts have been so well received, and continue to generate comments.
I CAN and WILL say anything I want about staffing agencies. As long as I don’t name a specific agency, I am not committing libel or slander.
Many staffing agencies lie to their workers and client companies. They also post fake job ads to lure job candidates in to sign on with them, telling them they have a good chance at landing the non-existent job. They get as much information as they can from job applicants. They want all your references from your former employers, but not for the reason you are led to believe. The fact is, they call up these references and do sales pitches to place people at their company. This is what they use your references for – as sales leads! They will keep calling these references and bugging them to death, for months or even years.
It is also well known that staffing agencies lie to workers about a temp assignment, telling them it will pay more than what it does, or telling them it is full time work when its not.
Some staffing agencies in my city will randomly call up people whose resumes they find on job boards, like monster.com, and threaten them to come in and sign up or else they will “report them to the unemployment commission”. Now, be mindful that not every person who has a resume on monster.com is collecting unemployment benefits, but I suppose these ignorant staffing agencies don’t realize that. They must look really stupid when they try to rat someone out, who isn’t even collecting benefits.
Staffing agencies don’t want temp workers to quit an assignment – even if you give a full two weeks notice. However, if they want to let you go from an assignment, they will do so without giving any notice at all, they just call you after 5 p.m. and tell you not to go back the next day. This puts many people out on the street with no other job to turn to, because they haven’t even been given enough time to round up another temp assignment.
I am employed right now, but I would work at McDonald’s before I would ever temp again. Staffing agencies are not a good thing for America, even if they do employ people. Their unethical maneuvers cause poverty and hardship for many American workers.
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Jayla,
I’m sorry you had a bad experience with an agency but generalizing about our industry as a whole is downright ignorant…
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