• Day labor has been utilized by employers in the United States for many years, but a study of day laborers conducted in 2006 by UCLA's Center for the Study of Urban Poverty found that in the day labor industry, basic labor laws were not followed. Though Arizona's day labor act was in place prior to the study, the fact that 18 percent of day laborers are in the southwestern United States could have prompted its passage.
  
  

Covered Entities

• Arizona's day labor statute defines day labor as "labor or employment that is under a contract between a day labor service agency and a third party employer, that is occasional or irregular and that is for a limited time period." Day laborers are people who seek employment at a day labor agency. Third party employers are businesses or individuals who contract with day labor agencies to secure employees for them.
  
  

Exempt Occupations

• Arizona's day labor act does not cover farm contract laborers or temporary services agencies that typically provide white-collar labor engaged in secretarial or clerical work. It also doesn't cover temporary, skilled, white-collar labor, such as tax preparers. Labor union hiring halls or employment offices operated by a business that only hires day labor for itself are exempt from the law. The UCLA study revealed the day laborers typically denied basic labor rights are usually hired for unskilled jobs such as construction laborers, roofers, painters, drywall installers and landscapers, which accounts for the Arizona act's focus on employment in other than white-collar jobs.
  
  

Wages

• The Arizona day labor laws require the day labor agency to pay the laborers with a negotiable instrument that is payable in cash at a financial institution, on demand. As the UCLA study found, many day laborers are paid less than minimum wage and are underpaid for the hours they worked. The Arizona day labor laws require that day labor agencies give the laborer an itemized statement of their wages and any deductions taken, when they give them their pay for the day. It also forbids day labor agencies from taking deductions from the pay, except federal and state taxes, that would result in the employee's pay falling below minimum wage.Other deductions could be for meals. The act also bars the day labor agency from interfering if the third party with whom they contracted offers the day laborer a permanent position.