Temp/Agency/Precarious Workers

[bricolage]

I was wondering whether anyone knew of any examples of struggles of attempts at self-organisation predominantly involving these kinds of workers?
Cheers.

[blake 3:17]

I know folks whoève tried to self organize, others to organize -- given the craziness of the work I do think it needs to be an alliance.

Workers centres have done good jobs on this front. A former peace group here used to do weekly pickets of a temp agency. The most successful ones have been ones involved in self organization and community alliances.

I know about more attempts, but would rather know what you are aiming for. If you want to put it in the thread, great, or PM me.

[Imposter Marxist]

Temp organizations should be criminal. The factory I worked in hired temps often and I talked to a few of them, and what they told me was insane. The temp service forbid workers from driving to the location they pick for them, THEY had to give them the ride. Why? They took that out of their pay, which was often the first hour of their paycheck. The workers end up making LESS than minimum wage, have to commit longer than other workers, and are often looked down upon by staff.:mad:

[bricolage]

I'm not presently planning anything myself (even though I am a temp worker at the moment) but just interested in it as an idea. It seems more and more workers (in the west I should add) are being shifted on to temporary and precarious contracts, eroding all the stability that used to come with jobs. I think this represents one of the key modern shifts in class terrain in these countries but creates a number of problems for organisation; lack of social bonds between workers, unwillingness to risk losing an already, well, precarious job, ease of scabs. Additionally considering temp workers most often work in situations alongside non-temp workers you tend to a get a hierarchical system where the latter look down upon the former, in itself equally problematic.

[bricolage]

Temp organizations should be criminal. The factory I worked in hired temps often and I talked to a few of them, and what they told me was insane. The temp service forbid workers from driving to the location they pick for them, THEY had to give them the ride. Why? They took that out of their pay, which was often the first hour of their paycheck. The workers end up making LESS than minimum wage, have to commit longer than other workers, and are often looked down upon by staff.:mad:
Jesus. Temp agencies here can be shit but I've never heard of it being anything near to that bad.

[Imposter Marxist]

Also, if workers have been going to the same place for too many days in a row, they will switch them (Thats how Temps get hired in to full time) as to keep their basis. The guy I was talking to went to college, had two kids and a wife, and was getting paided less than minimum wage for extremely tiring work. (Waking up at 4 AM every day working 9 hours for 70 bucks a day? Fuck that)

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm not presently planning anything myself (even though I am a temp worker at the moment) but just interested in it as an idea. It seems more and more workers (in the west I should add) are being shifted on to temporary and precarious contracts, eroding all the stability that used to come with jobs. I think this represents one of the key modern shifts in class terrain in these countries but creates a number of problems for organisation; lack of social bonds between workers, unwillingness to risk losing an already, well, precarious job, ease of scabs. Additionally considering temp workers most often work in situations alongside non-temp workers you tend to a get a hierarchical system where the latter look down upon the former, in itself equally problematic.

However, I'm looking at this from another perspective: if governments decide to nationalize every single temp agency, it might - just might - be the basis of the realization of zero unemployment structurally and cyclically by means of expanding public services to fully include employment of last resort for consumer services:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/public-employer-last-t124658/index.html