Temporary Work in Transnational Labor Regulation: SER-Centrism and the Risk of Exacerbating Gendered Precariousness

Abstract

This article explores the transnational regulation of temporary work. Analyzing the terms of the EU Directive on Fixed-Term Work (1999), the ILO Convention on Private Employment Agencies (1997), the ILO Recommendation on the Employment Relationship (2006), and a draft EU Directive on Temporary Agency Work under negotiation, it demonstrates that these regulations hinge on the gendered norm of the standard employment relationship (SER) or the full-time permanent job complete with a social wage. They pursue labor protections designed to stretch the employment norm. To the extent that this “SER-centric” approach alleviates precariousness, it is most likely to help workers in forms of employment closely resembling the SER (i.e., fixed-term workers) and least likely to improve the situations of those that are most precarious (i.e., temporary agency workers).