NIOSH teams with staffing association to promote temp worker safety and health

Washington — NIOSH and the American Staffing Association have announced a multiyear partnership agreement to advance protections for temporary workers.

The partnership will focus on promoting best practices, supporting the application of research to practice, and encouraging staffing companies and host employers to develop and use safety and health management programs – as well as effective technologies and prevention strategies.

Temp workers are paid by a staffing company and assigned to work for a host employer company.

“A key issue presented by the future of work is the growing number of nonstandard work arrangements, including employment in the temporary staffing industry,” NIOSH Director John Howard said in an agency press release. “Through this partnership, we will increase outreach to staffing companies and host employers and provide information and resources that are vital to protecting temporary workers.”

Goals of the partnership include:

• Advancing research and understanding of the value of occupational safety and health.
• Exploring areas of joint research to better understand and promote the safety and health of temp workers.
• Developing information about the recognition and prevention of workplace hazards and disseminating it to staffing companies, host employers and temp workers through various communication channels.
• Promoting translation of research results and implementation of injury and illness prevention strategies and technologies among staffing agencies and host employers to protect temp workers.

Among the first activities, NIOSH says, will be disseminating new standard practices for host employers to better protect workers. Those practices are being developed by the National Occupational Research Agenda Services Sector Council, on which ASA and some of its member companies serve.

“We are proud to work together with NIOSH to raise awareness of NIOSH’s research, develop new guidance and resources, and enhance outreach and communication, especially among staffing companies,” Stephen C. Dwyer, senior vice president and chief legal and operating officer at ASA, said in a separate press release.

The partnership is slated to run through January 2025.