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How would you like to have your own personal temporary agency and keep all the money your temp agency makes? Well, once you create your LLC you can use it as a consulting company and bid for temporary and contract work just like any other temporary agency or consulting company. The best part about using an LLC is that the LLC is not taxed when classified as a partnership, it merely distributes the money to you and your partner(s) . You and your partner(s) will of course have to pay tax on the money you receive from the LLC. Employers benefit because you are not an employee and they are not dealing with you as an individual, rather they are dealing with a business.

In some cities it can be very difficult to compete against established temporary agencies . I was amazed to learn that when I offered companies my services through my LLC (at a cost much cheaper than a temporary agency) that some companies did not care. I was actually told by a law firm that they did not care how much temporary word processors cost because they did not pay the bill, they forwarded the bills to their clients for them to pay it. This tells you that law firms can be a very good catch if you can get one.

While it may look difficult at first, if you keeping trying, it is possible to find companies who are actually interested in saving money when they look for temporary help. You can make a very good living with two or three steady clients. Temporary agencies are generally not interested in "little accounts" (i.e. employers who only use a small number of temps or who do not order a lot of temps daily) and most temp agencies are not interested in government accounts (they say the government takes too long to pay and that they don't pay enough). So, these are the places you can look to first. The best thing about government temporary contracts is that the government advertises. Temp contracts with the federal government can be found in Commerce Business Daily. Your state may have some newspaper that it uses to advertise government state contracts.

• Commerce Business Daily
• Contract Employment Weekly

Mega National temporary agencies are so large that they use other temporary agencies as subcontractors. So one tip would be to seek to have your LLC be a subcontractor to a Mega National agency. Just make sure that they pay you a lot more than they pay their temps, because you will have to pay self-employment related taxes as a business/self-employed person. Norrell Services is my favorite national agency. Manpower is the largest temp agency and the largest employer in the US. Talent Tree and Olsten are other national temp agencies.

Warning To Programmers

The New York Times reported on April 27, 1998 that there is a 1986 law in which Congress decreed that most individual programmers cannot be entrepreneurs. The law apparently relates to programmers creating companies in which they are the only employees. It would appear to us that this prohibition would not apply to groups of programmers who get together and form and LLC with which to market their services.

Masters and Servants

Unless you have a written contract for employment or you work for the government, your employment is governed by your state's Master Servant Clause and is considered to be Employment-At-Will. What this means is that your employment can be terminated at any time for any reason (except for the seven or so reasons which are considered to be unlawfully discriminatory).

The employment of government employees and people with contracts to work for a specific duration are considered to be Property Interests. A Property Interests cannot be taken away without due process of law. What this means is that the employment of these people are considered to be property like a house. You can't just take someone's house, not unless you go to court and show that (for example) they have a mortgage on the house that they have defaulted on and that you are entitled to the house as a result.

At Cost Services, Inc.'s Agenda

It is our objective to obtain legislation requiring that contracts for temporary and contract labor be advertised and subject to competitive bids and the requiring that the act of selecting a source for temporary and contract labor  be subject to Federal and State laws on employment discrimination as regular employment hiring is.

You can support this position by writing to a company you are interested in working for (as a consultant or temporary) and requesting the procedure for biding on temporary and contract labor. If you are a member of a protected group, you can file a complaint with your state human rights department and/or the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if a company refuses to allow you to bid for temporary and contract labor or refuses to give you details on how to compete for contracts for temporary and/or contract labor. Title 42 Section 1981 may also be available in this situation.

As far as we have been able to determine, the EEOC has not taken a position on whether or not contracts for temporary and contract labor should be subject to conditions (with respect to advertising and word of mouth hiring) as regular employment hiring is.

Hiring Welfare Recipients and Making Them Management

The New York Times, Saturday, May 21, 1994, contained an article about a partnership of former welfare recipients that bid on contracts for temporary health care jobs.

The company, Cooperative Home Care Associates has almost 300 members.

"The company has been set up as a for-profit enterprise to enable employee ownership and dividend payments. Cooperative employees split profits of $150,000 a year on $4.5 million in revenues. The dividends amount to a return of 20 percent to 50 percent. Workers must sell their shares for the $1,000 value when they leave the cooperative."

The US Department of Labor has a program to create One-Stop-Centers . These One Stop Centers would be places where people could obtain unemployment services, job training and job placement all in one place. Of particular interest is that these centers would be able to do job placement services and act as central registers of available work, permanent, temporary and contract work. This could create intense competition between the large temporary agencies to obtain THE contract to participate in the One-Stop-Center in a state or nationally, as what ever company is chosen will clearly have a business advantage over their competitors. (i.e. they will have the state and federal governments as business partners).

The Wall Street Journal carried an article on Manpower's alliance with Wisconsin in its one stop program. The Journal reported that Manpower ended up quiting the program at a loss of some $100,000.00.

This One-Stop Program is of interest to us in that (a) getting companies to list (advertise) available temporary and contract work with a government agency can only help those of us who want to have our own companies bid on temporary and contract labor; (b) it may result in non-profit organizations being able to directly engage in job placement services without risking their tax exempt status. If this program becomes widely adopted by all states, it could definitely change the balance of power in the temporary and contract work environment.