> 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...
Well, yes, there are always some people who will do that.
Twenty or more years ago, temp agencies were just what they look like:
a plce to get someone to fill in while the secretary was sick, when
there were extra trucks to unload or too many nurses off with the flu.
Now, while that function presumably still remains along with the
service to "recreational" workers seeking discretionary income, they
are mainly a tool for employers to externalize internal diseconomies.
Naomi Klein gives a good picture of how Microsoft does this in _No
Logo_.
In hospital nursing, knowing the workplace, the other workers and the
patients is a big, a very big, asset in delivering good care.
Constantly rotating temps through a floor serves the employer in
various ways but does not serve the patient or make the task of giving
care easier. "Easier" is perhaps the wrong word. It isn't *possible*
to give nursing care as well if every patient is new to you every day,
if you have no estimate of the strenghts and weaknesses of your
colleagues, just how the other support services will work in an
emergency and on and on.
Some nurses really like what I might ccall long term temping --
several months in Colorado, several in Maine, a few in Delaware and so
on. I have yet to hear of one who likes the more typical temping deal
of only a shift or three before moving on to another ward, hospital or
town.
The notion that temping exposes you to potential employers who may --
will eventually -- hire you full time may still be true in some
occupations or venues but I'm reasonably certain that it's no longer
the canonical mode.
I really like the idea that a temp agency should be an agent for the
worker. That's so obvious that, when looking for summer work as a
teenage student, I greatly surprised that it was not the way things
worked with all "employment agencies". But since the temp agency is
typically itself a corporation, it wants to externalize diseconomies
too. Cutting a deal with another corporation for a nice big chunk of
change and then doing whatever you can to meet the contract is more
attractive than having to work out fee agreements with each and every
job applicant and then -- Good heavens! -- be accountable to each and
every one of them.
- Mike
---
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
