| Type | public (NYSE: TBI) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Employment services |
| Founded | Kent, WA 1989 |
| Headquarters | Tacoma, WA Labor Ready operates 600 locations across all 50 states and Canada. |
| Key people | Robert J. (Bob) Sullivan, Chairman Steve Cooper, CEO and Director |
| Products | Temporary workers for manual day labor. |
| Employees | 2,900 (2004) 600,000 temporary employees to jobs in construction, manufacturing, hospitality services, landscaping, warehousing, retail and more. |
| Website | http://www.laborready.com |
Labor Ready, based in Tacoma, WA, is the United States' largest provider of temporary workers for manual day labor to the construction industry, other light industry, and small businesses. Its shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TBI. Labor Ready is part of the TrueBlue group of companies, which also includes CLP Resources, Spartan Staffing, Plane Techs, and Centerline.
Founded in 1989 in Kent, WA by Glenn Welstad and two partners, Labor Ready has 600 locations in all 50 states and Canada. It has also grown through the acquisition of two companies, CLP Resources and Spartan Staffing.
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Workers are paid daily by check or by cash voucher. Workers have access to safety equipment at no charge as long as it is returned to the appropriate branch office at the end of each work day. Workers who do not have transportation to jobs are sometimes provided with transportation at a fee of between $2.50 to $3.50 each way. The current rate as of January 2011 in Brantford, Canada, is $5.50 each way. Workers also commonly use public transportation to get to and from job sites. They are encouraged to wait at their branch office each morning for work that may become available, though this waiting is unpaid.
All branches open at 5:30 AM in order to begin dispatching workers needed that day. (When companies need workers for evening, night, or weekend shifts, Labor Ready assigns the workers hours in advance or one to two days in advance.) Depending on the location of the office and the day of the week, anywhere from zero to roughly one hundred workers can be dispatched daily. Typically, workers line up outside the doors of a given branch office prior to the branch opening, however, company policy states it is not a first come first serve, as they deploy workers by a system known as "Best Match Dispatch" to supply customers (job sites) with workers who are most likely to fill their needs. Occasionally some potential workers receive no jobs for the day.
In 2003, Labor Ready was selected by the United States Department of Labor, which commended the company as a model for the temporary employment industry, as the first participant in its VIP program in which the employer and the Department of Labor work closely and productively to ensure compliance with all wage and hour rules.[1]
Labor Ready's I-9 documentation program has been recognized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with IMAGE Partnership. To become a partner, Labor Ready passed a series of interviews and audits by enforcement agency representatives. The company has also launched an I-9 training program in Spring 2008.[2]
In 2007, the parent corporation was renamed TrueBlue, Inc. to reflect the company’s expanding family of brands. It changed its corporate headquarters web address to http://www.trueblueinc.com, and its stock ticker to TBI. Labor Ready remains TrueBlue's flagship brand.
Other brands under TrueBlue include CLP, Spartan Staffing, PlaneTechs, BusTechs and Centerline. Spartan Staffing is one of the largest specialized providers of light industrial temporary workers in the southeastern and southern United States, providing workers for long and short term assignments. CLP provides skilled tradespeople for the construction and facilities industries.