Opinion ID: 198264
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Employment Agencies

Text: 3 Beginning in the early 1980s William Woods formed and operated approximately ten temporary employment agencies, including plaintiff-appellants Baystate Alternative Staffing, Inc. 2 and Able Temps Referral, Inc. (referred to collectively herein as Baystate), in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. 3 After founding the agencies, William was assisted in their operation by his son, Harold Woods, his sister, Ann Woods, and his wife, Marlene Woods, who served the agencies in various capacities as corporate officers and/or managers. 4 Each of the Baystate agencies was managed in a similar fashion. Baystate advertised its services to companies in need of temporary workers to perform unskilled labor, including industrial and factory work, heavy labor, and assembly and packing. Baystate generally charged its client companies between $6.00 and $7.50 per hour for the services of the workers; from this amount, Baystate usually paid the workers the minimum wage, keeping the premium for itself. Baystate's advertisements represented that it would handle all the burdensome paperwork, bookkeeping, record keeping, payroll costs, and government reporting. Baystate also informed potential customers that it would provide workers' compensation coverage for the workers, and that it would transport the workers to and from the work site. To obtain temporary workers, client companies called one of Baystate's offices with a job order requesting a specified number of workers. 5 Baystate required all job applicants seeking temporary work to sign a Contractor Agreement, which stated that the worker was an independent contractor and not an employee of Baystate. A memorandum attached to the agreement set forth the rules and regulations all workers were required to follow. The memorandum warned that if a worker contacted a client company on his or her own initiative about potential job opportunities, without the involvement of Baystate, the worker would not be placed with a client company in the future. It also prescribed rules on completing and submitting time cards to Baystate, informed workers when they were to present themselves at Baystate's offices for work assignments and how they would be transported to and from job sites, and instructed workers about appropriate clothing and behavior at job sites. 6 Although Baystate issued the workers' paychecks and apparently provided some type of workers' compensation insurance for the workers, it concedes that it did not pay the workers time-and-one-half their regular rates for hours they worked in excess of forty per week. 4 It also did not deduct federal or state income taxes from the workers' paychecks, contribute to the workers' social security accounts, or pay any state unemployment insurance on the workers' behalf.