Regulation Could Bring Temps Out Of Workplace Limbo

July 21, 2000

University Park, Pa. --- The fast-growing industry of temporary help services has helped to meet changing labor demands, but has also created second-class work conditions for many temporary employees, a Penn State researcher says.

"The employment picture for temporary workers is widening rapidly while the core of permanent skilled workers in shrinking, a paradox within a booming economy," says Dr. Jackie Krasas Rogers, assistant professor of labor studies and industrial relations with affiliations in sociology and women's studies.

"It may require more intervention or even regulation by the government, either at the state or federal level, to ensure fair and equitable working conditions for this group which spans many occupations, from secretaries to lawyers," she notes.

"The most obvious is the lack of benefits, but other issues exist which codify a workforce caste system for temporary workers, especially among women and people of color," adds Rogers, a faculty member in the College of the Liberal Arts.

Government regulation, in her view, could help secure not only benefits but also a humane work environment for many temporary workers who find themselves in workplace limbo.

Government regulation, on both the state and federal level, could ameliorate the plight of the temp by prohibiting pay differentials based solely on temporary status; provide workers with an independent avenue of recourse for unjust treatment; limiting the use of "permanent temporaries"; reducing discriminatory practices in placement; giving agencies better recourse for dealing with unethical clients; and coordinating employment benefits under multiple temp agency use, according to Rogers.

Temp workers could also benefit from regulation facilitating the unionization of temporary workers and preventing the use of temporary workers in union busting, the Penn State researcher says.

Rogers is author of "Temps: The Many Faces Of The Changing Workplace," recently published by Cornell University Press. In her research, she conducted interviews with 35 temporary clerical workers and temporary agency managers in Los Angeles and Pennsylvania, as well as a second group of 15 temporary attorneys. She also drew on her own experience as a temporary clerical employee in Los Angeles in 1993-94.

"The temporary help services industry and its client businesses claim they are responding to a shortage of qualified workers, which they blame on the educational system and even the women's movement. In reality, it is the temp agencies and their clients, more than changes in the labor force, which are driving increases in temporary employment," says Rogers.

"My research does not point to a deliberate conspiracy between temp agencies and businesses to hold down workers," she notes. "Temp work is not a uniform phenomenon, neither is it inherently inferior. Some temp work in law and information technology can be reasonably lucrative and prestigious."

Nevertheless, most temp work is not worker friendly, since the flexibility of the temp usually means accepting the inflexibility of the agencies and clients. Furthermore, despite promises frequently made by temp agencies and their clients, most temporary positions are dead-end.

"Temporary employment realigns power in ever greater favor of the employer," Rogers says. "Workers now have two bosses, one of whom is paid to provide a service to the other. The essence of that service is to provide employers with available, cheap and compliant workers."

Thus, any attempt to blame temporary workers for their own proliferation is misleading. The temporary help services industry has taken pains to ensure its own success, lobbying arduously to keep itself unencumbered by regulation, according to the Penn State researcher.

"The temporary workers' continuing refrain of frustration, despair, alienation, and outrage can be best understood in light of problems associated with clerical work in general and their relative powerlessness in the temporary employment triangle," she notes.

"Because temps do not have traditional work arrangements, they are not seen as having a `real job' -- full-time, year-round and ongoing," Rogers says. "Our entrenched belief in American meritocracy renders those without a `real job' (or any job) responsible for their condition. Co-workers and managers alike assume that something is wrong with the temp."

As a result, temporary clerical workers are likely to be assigned the least desirable, most monotonous work in the office. Even when they do the same job as a permanent employee (and do it better), they receive less money and fewer benefits. This, in Rogers' estimate, is a poor price to pay for so-called flexibility.

"An economy with fewer temporary jobs and more permanent jobs gives potential temporary workers greater latitude in their job search and a greater ability to assert their rights should they find themselves working temporarily. Under such circumstances, temporary jobs could be truly temporary," Rogers notes.

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Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (o)

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h)

EDITORS: Dr. Rogers is at (814) 865-0745 or at by email.