IL Temp Agencies Accused Of Wage-Fixing, ‘No Poach’ Agreements

KANE COUNTY, IL — Two Kane County companies are among four firms facing a lawsuit over allegations they worked together to suppress employees’ wages and limit their ability to find better pay.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Wednesday sued Colony Display — with locations in St. Charles and Elgin — along with temp agencies Elite Staffing, Midway Staffing and Metro Staff Inc., which is based in Elgin.

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The lawsuit claims the three temp agencies violated antitrust laws by making agreements not to recruit or hire each other’s employees working for Colony Display. The attorney general also alleges the agencies agreed to not compete by paying temporary employees the same wage, which was below market value.

The agencies’ “no-poach and wage-fixing conspiracies suppressed the wages of the temporary workers employed by the (agencies) and staffed at Colony and prevented workers who were unhappy with their treatment and conditions of employment from switching among the (agencies),” the lawsuit reads.

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Colony Display employs 75 to 100 full-time workers and between 200 and 1,000 temporary workers at its two facilities, where the company designs and manufactures customized fixtures for homes and businesses, the lawsuit reads. The three temp agencies have been placing employees at the facilities since February 2018, according to the suit.

Starting in March 2018, the agencies made agreements not to recruit or “poach” temporary workers from each other at Colony’s facilities, the suit claims. Raoul’s office also alleges the agencies conspired around that time to pay the same wage to temporary employees.

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“Given how important the hourly rate is to the (agencies’) ability to compete with each other and successfully solicit, recruit, and hire temporary workers, the (agencies) would not have agreed to pay a fixed wage set by Colony unless there was a mutual understanding among all of the (agencies),” the suit reads.

Colony Display executives helped the agencies coordinate and enforce the “no-poaching” and wage-fixing agreements, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit points to several emails between Colony executives and the temp agencies, including one from April 2018 in which Colony’s CEO at the time appears to remind an Elite Staffing executive about the no-poaching agreement.

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“It’s come to my attention that employees have been poached from Midway to work for Elite,” the email reads, according to the lawsuit. “I don’t have your employees[’] side of the story but I do have proof of employees who worked for Midway, who are now working for Elite. Please look into this as this is bad practice, we don’t allow for any of the agencies and I want to make sure everyone understand [sic] that.”

Representatives from Colony Display, Metro Staff Inc., Elite Staffing and Midway Staffing did not respond Thursday to Patch’s request for comment about the lawsuit.

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