Temporary Agency Work And Globalisation

Despite its geographic and industry expansion as part of the ongoing globalisation of service activity, temporary agency work (TAW) is relatively understudied. TAW is characterised by a distinct triangular structure where workers are typically hired by staffing or employment agencies while being ’dispatched’ to firms that use them as a type of temporary or non-regular labour. This agency-mediated labour dispatching, as a newly institutionalised industry, has registered rapid growth rates over recent decades across vast swathes of the globe. To a great degree, TAW is part of a wider structural transformation of work and employment under neoliberalism. Arguably, controversy over the expanding non-regular workforce is at its most acute when it comes to unsavoury labour-selling practices. In this connection, TAW is an exemplary field in which to examine today’s ’flexible’ capitalism and its concomitant phenomenon, i.e. ’inequality’. Featuring holistic and interdisciplinary perspectives, this edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of TAW, in an international context. It reveals how the TAW industry is intertwined with the changing relationship between the state, corporations and labour unions at the institutional-structural level, and also the perceptions and experiences of ordinary workers in everyday practice. By combining global and local forces, macro and micro levels of analysis, and theoretical and empirical investigations, the book offers fresh insights into recurring issues of labour flexibility and inequality, contributes to practical applications and facilitates fruitful cross-national collaborations.

Despite its geographic and industry expansion as part of the ongoing globalisation of service activity, temporary agency work (TAW) is relatively understudied. This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of TAW, in an international context, revealing how the TAW industry is intertwined with the changing relationship between the state, corporations and labour unions at the institutional-structural level, and also the perceptions and experiences of ordinary workers in everyday practice. By combining global and local forces, macro and micro levels of analysis, and theoretical and empirical investigations, the book offers fresh insights into recurring issues of labour flexibility and inequality, making practical suggestions and facilitating fruitful cross-national collaborations.

Despite its geographic and industry expansion as part of the ongoing globalisation of service activity, temporary agency work (TAW) is relatively understudied. TAW is characterised by a distinct triangular structure where workers are typically hired by staffing or employment agencies while being ’dispatched’ to firms that use them as a type of temporary or non-regular labour. This agency-mediated labour dispatching, as a newly institutionalised industry, has registered rapid growth rates over recent decades across vast swathes of the globe. To a great degree, TAW is part of a wider structural transformation of work and employment under neoliberalism. Arguably, controversy over the expanding non-regular workforce is at its most acute when it comes to unsavoury labour-selling practices. In this connection, TAW is an exemplary field in which to examine today’s ’flexible’ capitalism and its concomitant phenomenon, i.e. ’inequality’. Featuring holistic and interdisciplinary perspectives, this edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of TAW, in an international context. It reveals how the TAW industry is intertwined with the changing relationship between the state, corporations and labour unions at the institutional-structural level, and also the perceptions and experiences of ordinary workers in everyday practice. By combining global and local forces, macro and micro levels of analysis, and theoretical and empirical investigations, the book offers fresh insights into recurring issues of labour flexibility and inequality, contributes to practical applications and facilitates fruitful cross-national collaborations.

Within the context of social law, temporary agency work has always been subject of debate. The pursuit of more flexible forms of labour is at odds with maintaining decent labour relations. For that reason, ever since it was established, the UN organisation for labour issues, ILO, has focused on private work placement. In its early years it tended to prohibit or severely restrict private work placement, but gradually it came to acknowledge that, for instance, temporary agency work had positive aspects, and that a total ban was pointless. In 1997, this culminated in ILO convention 181, which was widely supported. This did not end the debate on non-standards forms of paid work. Which forms of work can be considered decent? How do they relate to human rights? What are the effects of globalisation? In the European context, too, (cross-border) temporary agency work has attracted extensive attention. Lastly, the Netherlands has its own, unique form of public-private regulation. The guiding principle in this book is whether Convention 181 still has value in this day and age. What are the developments in temporary agency work in the social domain? How do they relate to the wide range of flexible work forms that are increasingly catching up with temporary agency work? Decent flexibility is the challenge. Dr Fred van Haasteren (1949) started his career as a scientific associate at the Society and Enterprise Foundation (SMO). From 1978 onward, he worked in the Dutch temporary agency sector. In 1982 he became a board member of Randstad Nederland; in 1991 he became Vice-President of Randstad Holding. Among other things, he was also President of the platform of European temporary agency employers and of the global temporary agency employer umbrella organisation CIETT. He is still a board member of the Dutch Labour Standards Foundation (SNA) and an independent member of the NCP OECD. The social policy pursued by temporary employment agencies has always been at the centre of his activities.

Studies in Employment and Social Policy Series Volume 49 Decent Flexibility: The Impact of ILO Convention 181 and the Regulation on Temporary Agency Work aims to create awareness that flexibility in the labour market is allowed if decently regulated. Within the context of social law, temporary agency work has always been a subject of debate. The pursuit of more flexible forms of labour is at odds with maintaining decent labour relations. For that reason, ever since it was established, the UN organization for labour issues, International Labour Organization (ILO), has focused on private work placement. In its early years, it tended to prohibit or severely restrict private work placement, but gradually it came to acknowledge that, for instance, temporary agency work had positive aspects, and that a total ban was pointless. In 1997, this culminated in ILO convention 181, which was widely supported. This book, which was defended successfully at Leiden University as a doctoral Ph.D. thesis, reviews the impact of the convention during the past two decades and explores whether Convention 181 still has value. What is in this book? This book debates on non-standard forms of paid work and extends its scope in other directions, posing several highly relevant questions relating to the future of the labour market and its regulation: Which forms of work can be considered decent? How do they relate to human rights? What are the effects of globalisation? What are the developments in temporary agency work in the social domain? How do these developments relate to the wide range of flexible work forms that are increasingly catching up with temporary agency work? What are the challenges posed by decent flexibility? This book also discusses temporary agency work in the European Union. Due to its own, unique form of public-private regulation, Dutch regulation on agency work has been chosen as a good example of implementing ILO convention 181. How this will help you The fact that Convention 181 features among the most ratified ILO conventions that have been effected since 1990 makes clear that it is increasingly gaining attention. In the light of these ongoing global changes, this book gives a good view of the development of the regulation on agency work and creates an understanding of why agency work is controversial and what could be done to regulate agency work decently. Thus, this book serves as a resource for labour lawyers and other legal professionals, economists, sociologists, and business experts, to further the development on policy-making on decent work in connection with flexible labour and its regulation, both internationally and nationally.

There are numerous labour and employment issues facing South Asia in this era of growth. With critical examination of ongoing labour reforms, and using extensive field surveys, this book will be of interest to all seeking an analysis of labour economics, labour laws, economic growth and globalization in South Asia.

The shifting nature of employment practice towards the use of more precarious work forms has caused a crisis in classical labour law and engendered a new wave of regulation. This timely book deftly uses this crisis as an opportunity to explore the notion of precariousness or vulnerability in employment relationships. Arguing that the idea of vulnerability has been under-theorised in the labour law literature, Lisa Rodgers illustrates how this extends to the design of regulation for precarious work. The book’s logical structure situates vulnerability in its developmental context before moving on to examine the goals of the regulation of labour law for vulnerability, its current status in the law and case studies of vulnerability such as temporary agency work and domestic work. These threads are astutely drawn together to show the need for a shift in focus towards workers as ‘vulnerable subjects’ in all their complexity in order to better inform labour law policy and practice more generally. Constructively critical, Labour Law, Vulnerability and the Regulation of Precarious Work will prove invaluable to students and scholars of labour and employment law at local, EU and international levels. With its challenge to orthodox thinking and proposals for the improvement of the regulation of labour law, labour law institutions will also find this book of great interest and value.

'This state-of-the art collection brings together the latest research of eminent experts in the field. It combines a wide sweep with focused analysis of gender dynamics at home and at work, and the interaction between them. A longitudinal and life course perspective underpins the authors' assessment of the current state of gender inequality, and helps explain why some domains are more resistant to change than others. This timely and innovative volume will be an excellent resource for academics and policy-makers alike.' – Miriam Glucksmann, University of Essex, UK This meticulous book examines how gender inequalities in contemporary societies are changing and how further changes towards greater gender equality might be achieved. The focus of the book is on inequalities in production and reproductive activities, as played out over time and in specific contexts. It examines the different forms that gendered lives take in the household and the workplace, and explores how gender equalities may be promoted in a changing world. Gendered Lives offers many novel and sometimes unexpected findings that contribute to new understandings of not only the causes of gender inequalities, but also the ongoing implications for economic well-being and societal integration. This topical and interdisciplinary study by leading researchers in the field will appeal to course leaders, researchers and postgraduate students in sociology, economics, public policy, demography and human geography. Social scientists interested in gender equality, labour market behaviour and public policy will also find much to interest them in this fascinating book.