Temporary Workforce Research Articles

(A191) The Challenge of the Mexican Oil SPILL (MC252)

This proposal considers the recent events in the Gulf of Mexico during the British Petroleum MC 252 explosion and subsequent spill. It will discuss the challenges and innovative solutions applied by those involved in the Safety and Pre-hospital medical branch of the Deepwater Horizon spill response. First, it examines the logistical and practical challenges faced by emergency medicine planners working with a large temporary workforce on a HAZMAT scene for many months. It will also discuss the geographic challenges with working on dock sites that existed in local communities with mostly a rural medicine and hospital system, while also considering the potential for ambulance and further pre-hospital support. Impacts resulting from the public/private Incident Command Structure (ICS) will also be discussed liberally throughout the presentation. The author is the former Emergency Response Coordinator for one of BP's largest contractors in charge of the Vessels of Opportunity (VOO) and Near-Shore Skimming (NSS) programs. He was in charge of coordinating all emergency medicine in multiple US states throughout the response. It will analyze the multi-layered approach taken by on-site contractors in addressing these issues from a planning and operational perspective. Planners discovered that a uniform, one-size-fits-all approach applied by the Unified Area Command in New Orleans was virtually inapplicable to sites that had unique geographic and personnel characteristics. Furthermore those who involved in cleanup work in the Gulf had very different requirements than those on-shore. Therefore, site-specific personnel had to adapt to conditions while working within the framework established in New Orleans in order to satisfy ICS guidelines and ensure that emergency medicine in local communities was not overwhelmed. Lessons for future responses will be discussed, as there will be an examination of both the land-based NSS and the water-borne VOO programs.

Temporary Workforce Planning with Firm Contracts: A Model and a Simulated Annealing Heuristic

The aim of this paper is to introduce a model for temporary staffing when temporary employment is managed by firm contracts and to propose a simulated annealing‐based method to solve the model. Temporary employment is a policy frequently used to adjust the working hour capacity to fluctuating demand. Temporary workforce planning models have been unnecessarily simplified to account for only periodic hiring and laying off; a company can review its workforce requirement every period and make hire‐fire decisions accordingly, usually with a layoff cost. We present a more realistic temporary workforce planning model that assumes a firm contract between the worker and the company, which can extend to several periods. The model assumes the traditional constraints, such as inventory balance constraints, worker availability, and labor hour mix. The costs are the inventory holding cost, training cost of the temporary workers, and the backorder cost. The mixed integer model developed for this case has been found to be difficult to solve even for small problem sizes; therefore, a simulated annealing algorithm is proposed to solve the mixed integer model. The performance of the SA algorithm is compared with the CPLEX solution.

Temporary Employment: Associations with Employees' Attitudes, Well-Being and Behaviour. A Review of Belgian Research

Results concerning the relationship between temporary employment and employees' attitudes, well-being and behaviour at work are inconsistent. We summarise Belgian research attempts to account for this inconsistency. These explanations concern (1) the heterogeneity of the temporary workforce; (2) the idea that contract type could moderate the stressor-strain relationship; (3) the possibility of hidden costs of temporary employment for permanent workers; and (4) transitions between temporary and permanent employment. Explanations in terms of heterogeneity added little in explaining temporary workers' responses. The other routes were promising. We discuss these studies in terms of possible implications for theory, methodology and practice.

Budget allocation for permanent and contingent capacity under stochastic demand

We develop a model of budget allocation for permanent and contingent workforce under stochastic demand. The level of permanent capacity is determined at the beginning of the horizon and is kept constant throughout, whereas the number of temporary workers to be hired must be decided in each period. Compared to existing budgeting models, this paper explicitly considers a budget constraint. Under the assumption of a restricted budget, the objective is to minimize capacity shortages. When over-expenditures are allowed, both budget deviations and shortage costs are to be minimized. The capacity shortage cost function is assumed to be either linear or quadratic with the amount of shortage, which corresponds to different market structures or different types of services. We thus examine four variants of the problem that we model and solve either approximately or to optimality when possible. A comprehensive experimental design is designed to analyze the behavior of our models when several levels of demand variability and parameter values are considered. The parameters consist of the initial budget level, the unit cost of temporary workers and the budget deviation penalty/reward rates. Varying these parameters produce several trade-offs between permanent and temporary workforce levels, and between capacity shortages and budget deviations. Numerical results also show that the quadratic cost function leads to smooth and moderate capacity shortages over the time periods, whereas all shortages are either avoided or accepted when the cost function is linear.

Global Markets, Local Conflict

After the breakdown of the International Coffee Agreement, armed conflict intensified in the Colombian coffee region. The decline of international coffee prices after the agreement was abandoned increased local poverty and made it difficult for the National Coffee Federation to compensate for the state’s failure to provide economic stability and social services. Poverty and a weakened Federation in turn opened windows of opportunity for illegal armed actors, cultivators of illegal crops, and drug traffickers. The link between change in international coffee markets and local violence is shaped by domestic processes of resource extraction such as land distribution, joint crop techniques, the periodic employment of a temporary workforce, and the nature of institutional regulation. Study of this link exposes the vulnerability of underdeveloped economies to economic and political decision-making processes beyond national borders.

'Working on Holiday': Relationships between Tourism and Work among Young Canadians in Edinburgh

Working holiday-maker programmes have facilitated a growing cohort of mobile young people who have an ambiguous status as both worker and tourist. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Canadian working holiday-makers in Scotland, this paper shows how working holiday-makers are situated in an ambiguous, contradictory position as working tourists, and are streamlined towards particular social and professional fields in which work-leisure boundaries are blurred. Although these blurred boundaries seem contradictory, they benefit employers who require an educated yet temporary work-force, while also meeting the desires of working holiday-makers for a lifestyle that is flexible, social, far from the pressures of friends and family, and that puts them in regular contact with other young foreigners who, like them, are at transitional points in life.

Tit for tat? Predictors of temporary agency workers' commitments

The temporary workforce is a small but increasing proportion of the labor market in most industrialized countries. It has been argued that the competitive advantage of temporary work agencies will be increasingly determined by their capacity to retain a committed workforce of temporary agency workers. Hence, we investigated temporary agency workers' commitment to their client organization and also their temporary work agency. Normative and affective commitments were predicted by perceived organizational support (POS) in the case of both entities, supporting the idea that these types of commitment are governed by a social exchange relationship. Continuance commitment was not associated with POS or placement-related variables. Unexpectedly, agency temps' commitments did not differ across the two entities. The results suggest that client organizations and temporary work agencies can each strive to achieve greater affective and normative commitments from agency temps, through POS-related activities, without compromising agency temps' commitments to the other entity.

The Impacts of Job Characteristics on is Employee Satisfaction: A Comparison between Permanent and Temporary Employees

The use of temporary employees in the information systems field continues at a high rate. In order to maintain a quality work environment, an organization must effectively manage both the temporary and permanent work force. A model of satisfaction is constructed based on previous literature and focus groups in three organization that proposes links to satisfaction from the job characteristics of dependence, autonomy, task interdependence, and management support. A survey of employees in public sector and non-profit organizations revealed that both permanent and temporary employees related management support to satisfaction, temporary employees related task interdependence to satisfaction, and permanent employees related job involvement to satisfaction. Follow-up interviews revealed satisfaction of the permanent employees to be negatively impacted by perceived workload imbalances.

An integrated approach to inventory and flexible capacity management subject to fixed costs and non-stationary stochastic demand

In a manufacturing system with flexible capacity, inventory management can be coupled with capacity management in order to handle fluctuations in demand more effectively. Typical examples include the effective use of temporary workforce and overtime production. In this paper, we discuss an integrated model for inventory and flexible capacity management under non-stationary stochastic demand with the possibility of positive fixed costs, both for initiating production and for using contingent capacity. We analyze the characteristics of the optimal policies for the integrated problem. We also evaluate the value of utilizing flexible capacity under different settings, which enable us to develop managerial insights.

“Nazis Hoe Cotton”: Planters, POWS, and the Future of Farm Labor in the Deep South

Abstract During World War II, the POW labor program provided cotton planters in the lower Mississippi Valley with a temporary yet timely solution to an increasingly mobile local labor supply. While war prisoners worked in a variety of crops and non-agricultural industries, one of the greatest concentration of camps and captive workers devoted to a single crop occurred along the southern stretch of the Mississippi River. Cotton planters in Arkansas, Mississippi, and northern Louisiana secured over twelve thousand war prisoners from 1943 to 1946. German and Italian prisoners reinforced a labor system based on boundaries of color even as their presence in the fields revealed racial contradictions. Even as the inexperienced field hands undercut planter profits, exposed racial tensions, and undermined racialized notions of work, their presence helped to extend the life of an exploitative plantation economy. Despite the limited scope and dubious success rate of POW labor, cotton planters in the Deep South found a temporary workforce to hold a place on the plantation for African-American labor.

"Nazis Hoe Cotton": Planters, POWs, and the Future of Farm Labor in the Deep South

During World War II, the POW labor program provided cotton planters in the lower Mississippi Valley with a temporary yet timely solution to an increasingly mobile local labor supply. While war prisoners worked in a variety of crops and non-agricultural industries, one of the greatest concen tration of camps and captive workers devoted to a single crop occurred along the southern stretch of the Mississippi River. Cotton planters in Ar kansas, Mississippi, and northern Louisiana secured over twelve thousand war prisoners from 1943 to 1946. German and prisoners reinforced a labor system based on boundaries of color even as their presence in the fields revealed racial contradictions. Even as the inexperienced field undercut planter profits, exposed racial tensions, and undermined racial ized notions of work, their presence helped to extend the life of an exploit ative plantation economy. Despite the limited scope and dubious success rate of POW labor, cotton planters in the Deep South found a temporary workforce to hold a place on the plantation for African-American labor. ON A BLAZING SUMMER MORNING IN 1943, dozens of curious planters gazed across a field full of white men chopping cotton. These spectators had gathered at E. J. Mullens's plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, to witness an unusual experiment. With the cooperation of military officials, local planters had secured sixty prisoners-of-war from nearby Camp Como. When the POWs arrived by bus, Mullens put his regular hoe crew of black farmhands on one side of the railroad and the Italian hoe hands on the other. Noting that the workers operated JASON MORGAN WARD is a doctoral candidate in history at Yale University. He is currently researching a dissertation on segregationist politics in the South during the 1940s and the early 1950s.

The Temporary Staffing Industry and Workforce Development: Assessing a System of Local Experiments

Local workforce authorities in liberal market states are increasingly charged with mitigating long-term unemployment rooted in macroeconomic forces beyond their immediate control. In the US, and now elsewhere, these authorities have begun to establish partnerships with the temporary staffing industry as a means of extending their limited resources and improving job placement outcomes. Such partnerships are especially prominent in the US, where the Department of Labor has sanctioned policy experiments between local workforce authorities and the temporary staffing industry. In order to appraise these experiments, we present case-study evaluations of three diverse and highly touted employment schemes undertaken by American workforce authorities in conjunction with temporary staffing agencies. We find that under even the most favourable circumstances, the modest mechanisms of these programmes are unable to produce appreciable impacts within local labour markets.

Foreign postdocs: the changing face of biomedical science in the U.S.

Progress in biomedical research depends upon the intellectual and physical effort of talented scientists. In the U.S., the composition of this essential resource has undergone substantial change over the past three decades. Postdocs have become the largest segment of the workforce in biomedical science and in recent years, foreign postdocs have accounted for all of the growth in the postdoctoral population. This workforce has helped fuel our extraordinary progress in biomedical research, but over-reliance on a temporary workforce may have far-reaching, negative consequences for our research enterprise.

On the Introduction of an Agile, Temporary Workforce into a Tandem Queueing System

We consider a two-station tandem queueing system where customers arrive according to a Poisson process and must receive service at both stations before leaving the system. Neither queue is equipped with dedicated servers. Instead, we consider three scenarios for the fluctuations of workforce level. In the first, a decision-maker can increase and decrease the capacity as is deemed appropriate; the unrestricted case. In the other two cases, workers arrive randomly and can be rejected or allocated to either station. In one case the number of workers can then be reduced (the controlled capacity reduction case). In the other they leave randomly (the uncontrolled capacity reduction case). All servers are capable of working collaboratively on a single job and can work at either station as long as they remain in the system. We show in each scenario that all workers should be allocated to one queue or the other (never split between queues) and that they should serve exhaustively at one of the queues depending on the direction of an inequality. This extends previous studies on flexible systems to the case where the capacity varies over time. We then show in the unrestricted case that the optimal number of workers to have in the system is non-decreasing in the number of customers in either queue.

Job Insecurity and Health-Related Outcomes among Different Types of Temporary Workers

Over the past few decades, the number of flexible workers has increased, a situation that has captured researchers’ attention. Traditionally, temporary workers were portrayed as being disadvantaged compared to permanent workers. But in the new era, temporary workers cannot be treated as a homogeneous group. This study distinguishes between four types of temporaries based on their contract preference and employability level. Furthermore, it compares them with a permanent group. Whether these groups differ on job insecurity and health-related outcomes in a sample of 383 Spanish employees was tested. Differences in well-being and life satisfaction were found, and the hypotheses were supported. The results point out that the temporary workforce is diverse. Therefore, in order to attain a better understanding of the experiences and situations of these workers, it is preferable not to consider them as one homogeneous group.

Integrating resource and production decisions in a simple multi-stage assembly system

We consider a simple multi-stage assembly system, with stationary stochastic demand for a single final product that is made-to-stock. The assembly tasks are performed by human resources. This workforce consists of two parts: regular workforce with a long-term contract and temporary workforce, that are contracted based on the actual demand. Contracting resources early is always cheaper than contracting later. When we separate resource and production decisions, we can first determine order-up-to levels and production decisions in a standard way and afterwards find the best mix of regular and temporary workforce. Next to this decoupled approach, we present an integrated approach where these decisions influence each other. In a set of examples we show that the integrated approach can be very beneficial.

The Perceived Value of Airline Flight Operations Internship Activities and/or Benefits in the Pursuit of Career Goals

Collegiate aviation institutions throughout the United States have been involved in airline flight operations internship programs for over 20 years. Collegiate aviation and industry partnerships serve a variety of purposes, including: (a) allowing a student the opportunity to observe and experience the many facets of a commercial air carrier operation, (b) developing a greater awareness of the airline industry for the student, allowing for better-informed career choices and, (c) providing the airline with access to a low-cost, highly qualified, temporary workforce and a potential employee pool. This graduate follow-up study involved students who participated in the Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) Aviation Management and Flight (AVMAF) airline flight operations internship program. The study examined data gathered from students who served as interns at one of six different U.S. major air carriers and one U.S. regional air carrier. Former interns were asked to rate the value 14 specific internship activities/benefits had in the pursuit of their career goals. Former interns were also allowed the opportunity to identify other valuable internship activities and/or benefits not originally mentioned in the survey via open-ended response. Respondent employment demographic data are reported. The most valuable and least valuable internship activities and/or benefits identified by the collective group are reported. The most valuable and least valuable internship activities and/or benefits identified for each airline are reported. Recommendations for improving airline flight operations internship programs are also provided.

DOTS for temporary workers in the agricultural sector. An exploratory study in tuberculosis case detection.

This study was conducted in the Boland health district of the Cape Winelands of South Africa where there is a high tuberculosis incidence and prevalence. A survey conducted on 211 farms in the study district during 1998, reported that 65% (n = 9042) of all workers on these farms, were temporarily employed. Temporary farm workers live in communities either within or the outskirts of the boundaries of the Boland health district, from where they are transported to work daily. To estimate the point prevalence of sputum smear-positive tuberculosis among temporary farm workers in the Boland health district, and to determine whether temporary farm workers diagnosed with tuberculosis, have access to anti-tuberculosis treatment. The study took the form of a cross-sectional active case finding survey amongst adult temporary farm workers (not living on farms) on the four study farms in the Boland health district. Data was analysed using the Epi Info Version 6 computer programme. Four (4) existing (self-reported) tuberculosis cases were identified and six (6) previously undiagnosed new sputum smear-positive cases of tuberculosis were detected. The total point prevalence was 10 cases of tuberculosis in the cohort of temporary farm workers, resulting in a point prevalence rate of 2,809 cases per 100,000 temporary farm workers (95% CI 1,090-4,527). If the four (4) self-reported cases of tuberculosis are excluded in the calculation, the point prevalence of new sputum smear-positive tuberculosis cases is six (6) and the prevalence rate 1,685 cases per (95% CI 468-2909). Of the four self-reported tuberculosis cases, one indicated that their supply of medication was depleted, whereas the other three indicated that they had the required treatment at home. Tuberculosis is a major health problem in this region of South Africa and the incidence is projected to increase in correlation with the increasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Recent legislative changes in South Africa have resulted in a trend where farmers decrease their permanent work force and increase their use of a temporary work force. The nature of temporary employment in the agricultural industry creates potential difficulties for farm workers to access tuberculosis health care. The early detection and effective case management of this high-risk group presents a special challenge to the South African health community.

Occupational safety and health management systems in Australia: barriers to success

The growing popularity of occupational safety and health management systems in Australia has stimulated critical debate about their effectiveness. This paper asks whether the performance of such systems lives up to expectations. Making use of a research review and an extensive interviewing programme, the paper draws several conclusions. First, it observes that the definitional requirements for an occupational safety and health management system have been watered down, making it more likely that organisations can claim to have a system, but less likely that it will be effective. Second, a review of empirical research reinforces the view that systems can improve health and safety outcomes, but only if they meet strict conditions concerning senior management commitment, effective workforce involvement and programme integration. Third, several barriers to successful implementation are identified, including the failure to meet essential success factors, the inappropriate application of audit tools to ensure compliance, and their problematic application in certain sectors such as small business, contractors, and the part-time and temporary workforce. The paper concludes that occupational safety and health management systems can live up to their promise, but often fail to do so because of inadequate implementation or application in hostile environments.

Transnational Assembly Work: Vietnamese American Electronic and Vietnamese Garment Workers

What does it mean for Vietnamese Americans to work at home in the high-tech electronic industry? To what extent are the sweatshop conditions in electronic home-working in San Jose, dubbed the Silicon Valley, shared with the oft-cited garment industry in Viet Nam? To what extent do female and male workers have different expected roles to fulfill in each industry, and how do they get paid for doing the same tasks/jobs? What factors lead to their participation in electronic home-working? The focus of this article is on assembly home-working, part of the temporary work force of the electronic industry in San Jose, California, in comparison with the garment industry in Viet Nam. This article identifies transnational connections in assembly work, pay, and gender expectations of these two industries.