Hiring discrimination is pervasive within temporary employment agencies that serve warehouses and factories, Chicago-area workers’ rights organizations said Tuesday in releasing a study documenting practices that allegedly hurt Black or Latino applicants.

Activists looking to eliminate the sub-minimum wage for tipped employees — a practice that they say keeps workers in poverty, encourages sexual harassment and leads to racial discrimination — are taking a new approach in their campaign to end the two-tiered wage system in America: They’re arguing the lower tipped wage, sometimes as little as $2.13 an hour, violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.