The huge temp agencies are pushing a new bill in Congress.
Critics say it's a raid on the benefits of ordinary permanent employees.
The nations' gigantic temp firms say the bill would simply let them provide more workers with benefits. But critics, including the U.S. Departments of Labor and Treasury, say the change would open the door for companies to shift thousands workers to the payrolls of temp agencies, and turn permanent, full-time jobs with good benefits into temporary ones with poor benefits. The bill was tailor-made by the temp industry. Currently, common law says an employer is someone who supervises an employee at the workplace, while tax and labor laws say that a company must offer eligible employees the same health and pension benefits it offers to other employees at the same level or doing the same work. Furthermore, to make health and pension benefits tax-deductible, the employer must offer them to at least 70 percent of employees.