A prominent Chicago area candy company has become one of the first employers to be hit with a lawsuit under a controversial Illinois state temp worker protection law, under an action brought by the same organization that claims credit for drafting the law and ensuring the law included a language giving labor groups the right to use lawsuits to enforce it.
Last month, the organization known as the Berwyn-based Chicago Workers Collaborative filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the Ferrara Candy Company and two temporary worker staffing firms.
The additional defendants are identified in the complaint as Multi-Temps Staffing and PeopleShare.
In response, Ferrara told The Record they believe the lawsuit "has no merit," noting the CWC's lawsuit does not include any individual workers or any allegations of actual harm or illegal or dangerous working conditions.
The lawsuit centers on claims that the defendants allegedly violated the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Service Act (IDTLSA).
The law is currently the subject of a court challenge from temp worker agencies and others, asserting the law violates their constitutional rights.
That law has generally been on the books since 2006.
However, in 2023 and again in 2024, Democratic state lawmakers revised the IDTLSA law to include certain key changes.
Among those changes, the law now would require staffing agencies to "pay temporary employees who work at a particular site for more than 90 days within a year at least the same wages and 'equivalent benefits' as the lowest paid, comparable, directly-hired employee employed by" the company hiring the workers.
This provision would have required client employers to provide staffing agencies with proprietary information concerning the pay and benefits for their workforces, so the staffing agencies could have the information needed to comply with the new rules.
Other new sections of the IDTLSA would block employers from using temp workers to blunt the effects of a union strike or other work stoppage and would give workers and progressive activist groups like the Chicago Workers Collaborative the right to sue employers directly to enforce the law, rather than rely on the Illinois Department of Labor or Illinois Attorney General's office to take up the task.
On its website, the CWC has claimed credit for drafting and passing the law, and has lauded the inclusion of the so-called private right of action, giving them and others the ability to sue companies they believe have violated the new provisions.
The law generally took effect this spring.
However, the staffing agencies won a court order blocking the state from enforcing the "equal benefits" language, as a Chicago federal judge agreed that measure likely conflicts with federal law.
The temporary worker staffing firms asserted the law was all but impossible to comply with and would drive many of them out of business by destroying the temp worker model relied upon by many businesses in the state to meet staffing needs and used by hundreds of thousands of workers to find jobs.
The judge agreed the law would require businesses operating in Illinois and in other states to calculate benefits differently, depending on where workers performed their job. He said this directly conflicts with federal benefits laws which block states from enforcing such state-specific benefits rules.
He also agreed the rules would harm the temp worker industry in Illinois, potentially driving companies out of Illinois and jeopardizing the ability of temp workers to find jobs.
However, Illinois lawmakers revised that portion of the law, setting up a new round of court proceedings, as the staffing firms seek a new injunction blocking the state from enforcing the amended language in the IDTLSA law.
Such a motion for preliminary injunction remains pending in federal court, according to court records.
The judge has refused the staffing firms' efforts to block the provisions concerning union actions and direct action lawsuits.
In the meantime, the CWC appears to have moved to begin suing to enforce the law.
In the lawsuit against Ferrara, the CWC has accused of allegedly violating several technical provisions of the state law, including allegedly failing to provide the temp worker agencies with "information about anticipated job hazards ... at Ferrara's facility;" and allegedly failing to provide training tailored to those temp worker job assignments.
The lawsuit accuses the temp worker agencies of technical violations of the law, as well, specifically asserting the companies didn't tell workers where they could "report health and safety concerns" while working at Ferrara's facility; did not "take steps to urge Ferrara to correct hazardous conditions;" and did not remove their workers from Ferrara's facility until the alleged violations were remedied.
The lawsuit does not identify any specific "hazardous conditions" Ferrara needed to remedy or warn workers about at its facilities. Nor does the complaint identify any workers that were harmed while working at Ferrara's facilities.
Rather, the lawsuit merely states temp workers assigned to Ferrara's facilities notified the Chicago Workers Collaborative of the alleged technical notice violations.
The CWC then filed suit to enforce that law and collect a unspecified potential damages, including attorney fees.
According to its website, Ferrara operates six candy manufacturing and distribution facilities in Illinois, including in Chicago, Itasca, Maywood, DeKalb, Bellwood and Forest Park.
In a statement provided to The Record, a Ferrara company spokesperson said:
"This lawsuit has no merit and Ferrara denies its allegations. Ferrara provides safe working conditions in all our facilities, complies with all safety training requirements, and provides safety training to all temporary and full-time workers.
"The sole plaintiff is an organization purporting to represent temporary staffing agency workers. Not a single individual worker joined the lawsuit.
"Ferrara has contacted the plaintiff organization on multiple occasions to discuss any safety concerns. To date, despite its suit and alleged concern for worker safety, the plaintiff organization has never responded to Ferrara.
"In addition, the Illinois Department of Labor previously closed its investigation of this meritless complaint without any findings of wrongdoing."
Ferrara has not yet responded to the lawsuit in court.
The CWC is represented by attorneys Christopher J. Williams, Jacqueline H. Villanueva and Danya Moodabagil, of the Working Families Legal Clinic, of the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative.