Can "Temporary Employees" be considered an excluded class?

Simple enough, a 401k plan sponsor does not want "temporary employees" to be eligible to be in the plan.  These TEs only work a few months.  The 401k plan has a 90 day service requirement, elapsed time, no hours requirement with monthly entry.  Without the exclusion, a few of these TEs could slip over the 90 days and still be there on a plan entry date.  

Can they be an excluded class or does this seem too connected to a service issue that would not be permitted as an excluded class?  What if the exclusion centered on something like "employees not eligible for health benefits" are excluded?

Thank you

The Relius document has a section that you can choose to exclude the seasonal, part time, temporary, etc....  however, you must take into consideration that if they work 1000 hours the employee would become eligible.  this is in addition to the 90 days entry requirement.

I don't know what document you are using but read it.  maybe you have a similar available option.  I feel you might be too late to implement this year.

Temporary is extremely questionable as an exclusion and so the best way to handle is what Mr. Bagwell described.

Don't forget to explain LTPT employee rules to the plan sponsor.  They very likely will want to move away from elapsed time and use an hours-based service provision.  They also very likely will not at all like the LTPT rules.

LTPT should not be too much of a problem.  These Temporary employees come and go quickly.  50/50 whether they get to 500 hours but even if they do, its only for one year as they are long gone before year 2.

They want to bring the ""regular" employees in quickly which is why they have the 90 day eligibility.  

I want to say temporary employees could be an excluded class given their exclusion is based on limited employment with the company and not really hours-based.   We use an ftwilliam document so I am checking on what their language is for excluded classes.

If you go back and look at ERISA's history, particularly the original conference committee reports, you will see that the service-measuring rules adopted in ERISA are intended to be the only way you can exclude employees based on service.  The intent was to eliminate temp and part-times (and subterfuges thereof) as classes you could per se exclude.  People tend forget this, and that includes even the IRS on occasion.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/house-bill/2/all-info

Also, though not technically history, the report of staff of the joint committee on taxation is useful, but I can't quickly find a link.

Although there may have been subsequent statutory changes, I've been out of the business for about 14 years, and am not aware of them.

I believe the proposed regs say that if you have elapsed time, as long as the waiting period isn't longer than12 months, then LTPT doesn't apply anyway?

The normal eligibility is 90 days.  Since that is below the statutory eligibility period.  What if we had different eligibility for the Temporary Employees, say 1000 hours/12 months and semi-annual entry.  That should be a large enough hurdle to keep the Temp EEs from entering the plan and not keep them out as an excluded class.  But can different eligibility requirements for different employees be discriminatory?  Is discrimination possible if you are not yet a participant?