A sociology of the temporary employment relationship

This dissertation considers the "temporary help" relationship as one key to the transformation of American industrial relations since the early 1970's. It explores how this specific arrangement, as promoted by the temporary help industry (THI), became institutionalized in post-World War II U.S. society. While the literature on "contingent work" has suggested its tremendous growth was merely a result of changing "human resource" strategies, this study explores the specific actions taken by government, especially in the legal arena, that were necessary in ratifying the temporary employment relationship as legal and legitimate.;The study analyzes the structure and function of "temporary work" as a means for severing the employer-employee relationship between worker and the user of labor, and thus for re-segmenting the workforce. It reveals the ambiguous foundation in law and social history for the claim that the temporary help firm (THF) is a legal employer, on which the enterprise rests. The core of the dissertation provides a history of the obscure battle beginning in the 1950's over the legal status of the THF and the legitimacy of the employment relation it fostered, with special attention to the process in New jersey. It shows that the end result--the "deregulation" of the THI--was that the necessary legal changes allowing this form of employment to thrive were in place by the early '70's, in time for its expanded use to play a key role in the restructuring of industrial relations beginning at that time. It also shows why, given the fragile legal foundation for temporary work and the existence of alternative interpretations within American tradition, the nation's policymakers could have rejected the THI's claims, and the drift toward a low-wage/high-turnover workforce, and instead made a very different "strategic choice.";The dissertation includes an assessment of claims made by the THI that it charges workers "no fees," and that abuses associated with the early employment agency business have largely been eliminated. Research methods used include field observation; interviews with key informants in government and industry; and extensive analysis of industry, government and legal documents.