Ed,
I don't think we should assume that everyone using a temp
agency is always desperate for work. I suspect that some do
it just to provide discretionary income, or for a change of
pace in a life that may involve a different kind of work.
Just using myself as an example, I had worked as a
professional in offices for a number of years and decided to
do a month one summer as a production worker in a
non-unionized commercial bakery. I did this simply for the
experience and to remind myself what life can be like in
that kind of situation. It worked. I still remember it
vividly and as an economist have been affected by that
experience in a continuing way.
As it happened I didn't use a temp agency, I used the
classified ads in the local newspaper. However I am far from
the only person, even on this list, who must at least on
occasion have related to their work as being a choice rather
than a necessity. While I agree wiht you that being
completely reliant on temporary work is an unenviable
situation, not everybody using temp agencies is likely to be
in that position. I have heard that some people use them
simply to help them get out of the house.
My concern is this. If we assume that everybody wants to be
an employee and needs all the income that they can get, then
we not only belie the statistics and the experience of daily
life but we would have a society that couldn't see its
creative options, which lie in that space between need and
choice. How dull and dangerous that would be.
Brad, you say with respect to temp agencies
> What if they were called labor-pimps?
You make me like the term "flexwork agencies" even better.
You also say
Self-directed self-employment doesn't generally
> > need a procurer.
While I find your metaphors distasteful there is a point I
want to make. I think you mistake the nature of
self-directed self-employment. Those who are in a position
to pursue their own choice of work often go to some pains to
do it well. Kenneth Clark (Civilization) comes to mind, and
artists of many kinds. Their self-directed self-employment
isn't the isolationist activity that you seem to have in
mind: it often involves using a variety of services -
information, networking, research - that are not unlike
those provided by temp agencies to workers seeking work. If,
as Charles Brass suggests, the temp agencies were seen and
saw themselves as working for the workers, this affinity
would be clearer.
My purpose in this rather prolonged engagement is of course
to break up fixed perceptions (my own as much as others -- I
learn as I write) in such a way as to make us more aware of
our options. It is our habitual ways of looking at work that
are holding our habitual and increasingly unsatisfactory
ways of work in place?
Regards,
Gail
Gail Stewart
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Gail Stewart
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: Temp market for labour (what to call it....)
> My wife worked for a temp for a time before we were
married. She felt that
> she would never be sure of where she would be working,
what she would be
> doing, for whom, and under what conditions. When she was
not working, she
> was never sure of how long she would be off work before
she got that phone
> call. She was in her twenties at the time, so she could
take it, but I
> would hate to see people in that position for any length
of time.
>
> Ed Weick
>
> Visit my rebuilt website at:
> http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Gail Stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 6:02 PM
> Subject: Re: Temp market for labour (what to call it....)
>
>
> > Gail Stewart wrote:
> > >
> > > A question that came to mind:
> > >
> > > If temp agencies had a different name - something like
> > > flexwork agencies for instance - might we understand
them
> > > differently?
> > >
> > > Might we see them as facilitating self-directed
> > > self-employment and thus a welcome wave of the future,
> > > allowing people to enter the paid labour market only
as
> > > needed and to organize their lives around active
leisure
> > > rather than around paid work?
> > [snip]
> >
> > What if they were called labor-pimps?
> >
> > Self-directed self-employment doesn't generally
> > need a procurer.
> >
> > So we have at least 3 different ways to look at Temp
> > agencies, and no doubt there are individuals who
> > experience each of the three flavors.
> >
> > +\brad mccormick
> >
> > --
> > Let your light so shine before men,
> > that they may see your good works....
(Matt 5:16)
> >
> > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1
Thes 5:21)
> >
> > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. /
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403
USA
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
-------
> > Visit my website ==>
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
