>> For >> years people have accused Uber and Lyft to breaking labor law with the companies saying they're just technology platforms, not taxi services.

Now there's a new group of apps using a similar model.

They connect temporary workers with companies, but they say they're not temp staffing agencies.

Just tech companies are.

Nick Bloomberg joins us now with more now.

Nick, we see apps popping up all the Times.

How did these apps work will ultimately these work the same way as a staffing agency?

Does they perform the same function?

They connect temp workers with companies looking to hire laborers, but not as full-time staff.

>> Now they just do it via smartphone apps rather than a staffing company where Labor's have to show up in person at the office in order to get placed at a company because these companies say they're just a tech platform.

They haven't registered with the state of Illinois has a temp agency which the requires no registration might sound kind of simple.

But worker advocates say it's actually really important to protect labor's from shady fly by night operations that just close up shop and leave temporary workers in the lurch since these apps haven't registered to Chicago Workers Collaborative filed a series of complaints with the state Labor Department.

That department granted the collaborative the right to sue several of these companies, which the group says it's planning to do the organization's attorney told me the idea that these apps aren't operating as temp staffing agencies is just a sham.

It would do these companies that make these apps have to say, well, none of the companies responded to our requests for an interview, but we obtain their responses to the state Labor Department.

One of them variable wrote that there's a stark difference between its app and traditional staffing agencies.

The company says, quote, individuals that use variables platform decide when where and how long they want to work.

And at what pay rate and they bid to work on the operations that variables, business customers post on the platform now in a post on its blog aimed attracting those business customers.

The company writes that, quote, many companies invest a lot of resources and money to maintain a large force of hourly workers often becoming a barrier for a company to grow with little to no added value.

Now, despite describing itself as a technology platform, variables website does list 42 regional offices around the U.S.

The company raised a reported 32 million dollars in funding in 2021, Joanna, another one of the apps the Workers Collaborative reported to the state Labor Department has a reported valuation of 2 billion dollars.

So a lot of money, lot of money.

Why would just say that worker advocates are so concerned about these apps?

Will the registration requirements, the other state laws related to temps, the laws that the workers collaborative says these at companies are violating.

They're put in place to protect what's people vulnerable group of workers estimates of temps in Illinois range from 200,000 to more than 600,000 workers annually.

But a USC study found they earned just 50 to 67% of what direct hires make also injured on the job at higher rates.

And a black and Latino workers are over represented in the pool of temps.

One study found black workers face discrimination over the stereotype that Latino workers are harder working.

2 labor experts I spoke with said these temp staffing agencies raise a lot of concerns and that they view the app says just trying to get around labor and employment laws.

It is really interesting just to see how these new apps are popping up in these new policies.

Remember, we didn't have any apps.

No kid came back in the dirt one thing can make for that report.

Thanks,