| Chapter 2: | The Contingent Work Employment Relationship and Its Implications |
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temps, and attempt to provide mistake-free performances. These practices, it is argued, not only give rise to work intensification, they also heighten competition among temporary workers, which might reduce their possibilities for mobilising and organising (Burgess & Connell, 2004; Smith, 1998).
The conception of contingent work as disadvantage is evident in ethnographies of contingent workers (Parker, 1993; Raijman, 2001; Rogers, 1995; Tucker, 1993). Flesh Peddlers and Warm Bodies, one of the most in-depth studies that has been published to date, provides a rich ethnographic description of contingent workers in the United States. Parker (1993) reported, for example, that workers experienced a loss of individuality, inadequate income, and underemployment.12 In addition, they had no benefits and few, if any, opportunities to organise to protect themselves. Alienation, sexual harassment, social isolation, dehumanisation (such as being referred to simply as ‘the temp’), race, and gender are also themes that reflect the characterisation of contingent work as disadvantage (Garsten, 1999; Rogers, 1995; Rogers & Henson, 1997; Smith, 1998). Rogers (1995) noted that temporary workers were alienated from their work, from others, and from themselves. She attributed this experience to conditions such as lack of control over their work, lack of understanding of the purpose of their work, and lack of (sustained) contact with others. Rogers and Henson (1997) suggested that the experience of sexual harassment among temporary workers might be related to the organisation of contingent employment and to structural inequalities such as race, gender, and asymmetrical power relations. Similarly, Tucker (1993) examined how the structures of inequality and the social environment of contingent employment (e.g., having only loose ties to organisations) influenced the actions of temporary workers, their interactions with others, and their responses to offensive behaviours on