American Staffing Association (03/20/12) Stephen Dwyer

Late last week, a revised version of House Bill 1393 was passed out of the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Labor and Work Force Development. As originally drafted, HB 1393 would have prohibited staffing firms from charging permanent placement and conversion fees with respect to certain employees, potentially required in-state offices, and potentially prohibited staffing firms from sending candidate résumés to clients for purposes of generating client interest and job orders.

ASA and its affiliated chapter, the Massachusetts Staffing Association, met with the bill’s sponsor and proponents on several occasions, explaining how the original draft would harm the state’s staffing firms. As a result of these efforts, an entirely new bill was passed out of the committee.

Although the revised bill takes into account some of ASA’s and MSA’s concerns, it still would impose a significant administrative burden on law-abiding staffing firms. ASA and MSA will continue to meet with legislators to explain why the bill would harm staffing firms by imposing burdensome new requirements and detracting from their main mission of finding workers jobs.