Abstract
The rise of temporary employment is one of the most contested and influential transformations of the post-World War II era. The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America offers a unique cultural view of this labour market phenomenon. It contributes to literature on labour markets in general, and to the literature focused on transformations of the US labour market and career trajectories in particular. Because Hatton explores the depiction of the temp industry through the industry’s campaigns and cultural reactions to them, the book would also appeal to those interested in the role of media in social processes. Moreover, Hatton provides a historical analysis aimed at activists, politicians and policy-makers working towards a more equal and fair labour market. In the concluding discussion, she offers recommendations for changes and reforms that stand at the centre of current political debates in the USA, such as the contested healthcare reforms.
Hatton looks at the temp industry both as an important employer of millions of American workers and as a key player in changing cultural perceptions of work in post-war America. Two models of work are identified: the ‘liability model’, which sees workers as costly liabilities who decrease profits, and the ‘asset model’, which focuses on workers’ conditions and satisfaction, either from a business management point of view or from the point of view of labour unions. In the post-World War II era the asset model reigned, but by the end of the 20th century the liability model became the dominant paradigm. Hatton argues that the temp industry played a significant role in this cultural battle. It created new images of marginal workers, which granted the liability model re-entrance to the labour market.
The book is organized chronologically. The first chapter examines the appearance of the temp industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite employing both men and women, the temp agencies portrayed their workers as white, middle-class women who worked for self-fulfilment or for ‘extra money’. Hatton shows that this representation enabled the industry to avoid threats from workers’ unions, who were only interested in men’s work. The second chapter follows the industry through its vast expansion during the late 1960s and 1970s. It shows the transformation of the image of temporary workers, from ‘girls’ limited to clerical work, into capable men and women. In opposition to managerial perceptions of the time that viewed workers as assets whose productivity was of the greatest significance, the temp industry promoted a view of workers as liabilities –‘machines’ whose maintenance is costly and therefore are better ‘rented’ than ‘purchased’. The third chapter portrays the temp industry’s continuing growth in the 1980s, accompanied by the institutionalization of temporary work and its key role in the diminishing of the asset model and its overtaking by the liability model. The fourth chapter explores the temp industry in the 1990s and 2000s, and follows its further expansion to the global market. Consequently, by the end of the 1990s, US temp agencies faced fierce competition, which was accompanied by attempts to undermine its exploitations and unequal methods of employment. Social activists and politicians worked to improve the temp industry’s labour conditions and keep temporary jobs from replacing permanent ones. These actions had little effect on the industry as a whole, but they served to undermine the dominance of the liability model and to phrase a new version of the asset model.
In her conclusion, Hatton suggests a revised asset model of work, comprised of four elements: enhancing relations between the workplace and workers; providing social welfare, such as healthcare, to all citizens regardless of their work status; raising the minimum wage to a family-supporting sum; and changing temps’ position from strike-breakers to unionized workers.
Hatton addresses students and scholars, as well as labour activists and policy makers. The temp industry’s cultural strategies are described as active and deliberate. Hatton shows that labour market structures are man-made, and as such can also be changed by men. This is important for labour activists striving to create that change. Nevertheless, Hatton’s argument relies on carefully analysed data, and hence is persuasive to academics as well. Throughout the book, she portrays the evolution of the temp industry in a well supported and analytical manner. However, Hatton’s conclusions seem less convincing. While being concrete, they serve more as general directions than as practical policy recommendations in current American politics. Additionally, the recommendations lack theoretical grounding which could come from a more direct phrasing of the new ‘asset model’ and its logic. Hatton locates the cultural sources of the ‘asset model’ in labour activism and human resource management, but she does not suggest a formulation for a combination of the two. Such grounding could have made her conclusions as compelling as the analysis chapters of the book.