American Staffing Association (01/04/12) Lenz, Ed

California Labor Code requires that certain wage and other information be provided to each employee at the time of hire in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information. Any changes in such information must be provided within seven days of the changes unless such changes are reflected on a timely wage statement. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued a notice form that employers can use to comply with the new law. However, the DSLE form is problematic for temporary staffing firms.

Effective Jan. 1, 2012, California Labor Code section 2810.5(a) requires that certain wage and other information be provided to each employee at the time of hire in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information. Any changes in such information must be provided within seven days of the changes unless such changes are reflected on a timely wage statement.

The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued a notice form that employers can use to comply with the new law. However, the DSLE form is problematic for temporary staffing firms because it says a “work site employer” that uses another business, such as a “temporary services agency” or PEO, should provide the wage information “for the other business.” This suggests that temporary staffing firm clients would have to provide the notice to the staffing firm’s employees (and does not rule out the possibility that both the staffing firm and the client must provide the notice). Although temporary staffing firm clients may be co-employers for some purposes, they do not hire the firm’s employees—the staffing firm hires them, generally when it completes the I-9 form. Moreover, clients are not the employer of record for the payment of wages to the staffing firm’s employees and would have no way of knowing a temporary job applicant’s potential rate or rates of pay. Nor do they provide workers’ compensation coverage to the staffing firm’s employees. Therefore, the client should have no obligation to provide the notice of wages and workers’ compensation information to staffing firm employees.