Poll: Riverside County Voters Show Overwhelming Support for Allowing County Temporary Employees to Form a Union

By a two-to-one margin, Riverside County residents support efforts by members of the county's temporary workforce to form a union, according to the results of a new poll.

RIVERSIDE – The results of a poll of Riverside County voters, released at the Tuesday, April 22 Board of Supervisors meeting, show that voters support allowing temporary employees to form a union by a two-to-one margin.

Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates conducted a survey of 600 likely voters in Riverside County from April 9 to 13 to gauge their opinions on issues related to the County of Riverside’s use of temporary employees.   

Specifically, voters were asked whether they favored or opposed “allowing temporary employees to form an employee association to advocate improvements in the temporary worker program if a majority chooses to do so.”  Sixty-two percent of respondents said they favored the proposal, nearly twice as many as said they opposed it (33%).

Voters were also asked about a number of other standards for temporary workers that can be realized through recognition and collective bargaining with the union. Support for most of the individual standards exceeds 75 percent and opposition does not exceed 33 percent for any individual standard.  These standards include:

   
• Regularly informing temporary employees of vacant permanent positions with the County and giving temporary employees time off to interview for permanent county jobs (88% favor / 10 % oppose)
  
         
• Creating a system where temporary employees can report on-the-job problems anonymously (85% / 10%)
  
        
     
• Crediting time worked on a temporary basis towards benefits if someone is hired on a permanent basis (81% / 14%)
  
        
  
• Requiring that work given to temporary workers is truly temporary be defining the scope and hours of their assignments (77% / 14%)
  
        
  
• Providing basic health coverage to temporary employees (73% / 23%)
  
        
  
• Providing sick leave to temporary employees (63% / 33%)

“The two-to-one margin in favor of allowing temporary employees to form an association is striking when you consider the conservative political leanings of Riverside County voters,” said Jonathan Brown, of the opinion research firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates.  “The proposal enjoys a six-point lead among Republicans, while Independent (Decline-to-State) and Democratic voters support the proposal by 44 points."

"The data indicates that the center of today’s Riverside County electorate is very much inclined to support Riverside County temporary employees’ current efforts to form a union.”

More than 1,000 Riverside County Temporary Assignment Program (TAP) employees have been joining together to form a union with SEIU Local 721 since July 2007.