Abstract
Between Keeping Your Head Down and Trying to Get Noticed: Agency Workers in French Car Assembly Plants
Highlights
Labour market flexibility has long been a key component of the European Commission’s employment strategy.1 The Commission has promoted numerical flexibility and labour market deregulation as key drivers of employment growth, yet numerical flexibility is commonly associated with labour market insecurity, negative long-term career effects, and poor working conditions, for those in low-skilled occupations (Smith et al, 2008; Bouffartigue, 2008; Barbieri, 2009)
Some studies have challenged the assumption that this is a “precarious” form of work, contending that the presence of highly skilled occupations amongst agency workers reflects an aspiration for “portfolio careers” amongst professionals able to sell their skills in favourable labour market conditions (CIETT, 2000; Knell, 2000; Guest, 2004)
This paper begins the work of addressing this gap, first by presenting a conceptual framework, based upon Burawoy’s (1985) approach to the labour process, which tries to capture the specificity of agency work; secondly, by applying this framework to an initial analysis of data collected as part of an exploratory study of agency workers in the French car sector
Summary
Labour market flexibility has long been a key component of the European Commission’s employment strategy. The Commission has promoted numerical flexibility and labour market deregulation as key drivers of employment growth, yet numerical flexibility is commonly associated with labour market insecurity, negative long-term career effects, and poor working conditions, for those in low-skilled occupations (Smith et al, 2008; Bouffartigue, 2008; Barbieri, 2009). The Commission has promoted numerical flexibility and labour market deregulation as key drivers of employment growth, yet numerical flexibility is commonly associated with labour market insecurity, negative long-term career effects, and poor working conditions, for those in low-skilled occupations (Smith et al, 2008; Bouffartigue, 2008; Barbieri, 2009) These are labour market outcomes that sit uneasily alongside the Commission’s promotion of “decent work” (European Commission, 2006) and which present a significant challenge for European societies as policy-makers continue to pursue employment flexibility. This paper begins the work of addressing this gap, first by presenting a conceptual framework, based upon Burawoy’s (1985) approach to the labour process, which tries to capture the specificity of agency work; secondly, by applying this framework to an initial analysis of data collected as part of an exploratory study of agency workers in the French car sector. The final part of the paper presents a ‘pilot’ assessment of the adequacy of Burawoy’s conceptual framework via an initial study of agency workers and union representatives in three car assembly plants and one large supplier company in France
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