The Youth for Rent: The Labor of Young Highly-Educated Temporary Workers
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Chang, Chia-Jung
Abstract
I used field research, interviews and data analysis to understand: why young highly-educated workers are willing to engage in temporary works which are low-paid, lack of benefits and promotion opportunities? I extend the classical theoretical concept “commoditization of labor power”, and further ask: labor power as a product, how to be "rented"?
I propose an exploitation proposition in the temporary work relation: to acquire and cover up the surplus value, the client companies and temporary help agency would build a false labor-management relation and conceal real one. However, the temporary help agency is dominated by client companies, it doesn’t own any practical power of employee supervision, direction or management. To develop the market, the temporary help agency promote the benefits of the labor renting; on the other hand, the temporary help agency also advocate job seekers engaging in temporary works, and select “good” labor product to rent. The temporary help agency acts as an employer in order to construct a false labor-management relation. The “rent” of labor power is different from ordinary one, because it still guarantees the conversion of social positions. Through the transaction of rent, the employer position could successfully be outsourced.
Compared with the traditional labor-management relations, it’s a high-risk action for young temps to rent their own labor power, because the level of commodification of labor power is much higher. The position in the "diploma market" of a young highly-educated temporary worker decides motivation, purpose and standpoint when they go to temporary works. The long-existing credentialism in Taiwan also plays an important role in the labor market of temporary works. The value amount of diploma one hold has relations with the bargain power in the labor market. The wage institution and cultural factors affect the subjective consciousness; they hold an extreme commoditized view on their own labor power, this view is so strong that they could tolerate being treated unequally by client companies temporarily, and work harder to become a formal employee one day.
In the context of production, the identity of temporary workers is an intermediary factor when the client company controls them. It affects the different levels of control patterns. In addition, young temps don’t regard the temporary help agencies as their real employer from the beginning, the employer role they plays is not successful as they plan. "Time" is the key element that let the temps see through the illegitimacy of false labor-management relations. They originally hold the highly-commoditized cognition, but through the special events in everyday working life, the temps will find that this cognition will let them lose many economic rewards. Gradually, the increased sense of relative deprivation will challenge this cognition. However, their responses to the situation are just trying to become formal employees. These young temporary workers resist their own identity and develop different strategies to cope with it, but these strategies did not overthrow the structure, instead support its consolidation. In addition, even if the controversial events happen and the labor-management relations are precarious, the temps cannot really exert their resistance power. The false labor-management relation makes the "two bosses, no boss" dilemma and control them with the obscure subordination again.
Overall, in the era of economic globalization and Post-Fordism, the benefits of labor renting for client companies are not only reducing personnel costs, more convenient access to labor power, outsourcing the abstract market risk and employer identity to temporary help agency, but also creating the “conversion discourse” to attract job seekers. Therefore, the temps must face these uncertainties with limited comprehension. The unfair situation "just give me labor power, but no workers" caused by capitalists is more serious.
Subjects
temporary work
atypical employment
youth poverty
working poor
unemployment of the highly-educated
labor renting
SDGs
Type
thesis
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