Organizing with Temp Workers / Actions at Temp Agencies

I was a temp worker for 6-7 years, with a couple of agencies. Firstly some small ones, then a big, national one. I did some jobs for a day or two, and other jobs for up to two odd years.

In all of those, I looked for opportunities to organise. But basically apart from individual "resistance" (shirking) there was nothing.

The main problems were and are that workers at one agency don't really have that much in common. They may never see any other workers from the same agencies them. Many of the workers you work with are permanent, or from other agencies.

Other workers it your same agency will also have completely different conditions (at the different workplaces) and even different rates of exploitation - many big companies and public sector bodies negotiate discounted rates with single agencies to provide all their temps.

The other things you mention Laure, when individual agencies are breaking the law, to be honest I think would best be dealt with by conventional trade unions via legal processes.

In general I think that the best way to organise agency workers, and the only way I've personally had any success, is by doing so by workplace alongside permanent workers. Because it is permanent workers and temps in one enterprise that share that same conditions, that work together and hang out every day, faced the same work environment, the same excessive work rate, the same bullying manager...

Also of course, if you want a pay rise you need to ask your workplace boss, rather than the agency.

Like Devrim outlined on the other thread, if so and agencies are involved in things like organising mass scabbing on a dispute, then intervention at particular agencies would be useful. But otherwise I don't see that much as possible.

Jon, I can see why you might think this if you have a romanticised view of trade unions. However, it doesn't tally with reality. Firstly, like I said agency workers work in all kinds of different workplaces. So having them all join one union, say Unite, would mean that most of them would be working in places organised by other unions (or more likely, of course, not organised at all).

Secondly, unions aren't great organisations that defend working people. They scab on each other en masse. People in different unions are hardly any more likely to not scab than non-union members. In local government for example in our July strike, Unite and UNISON struck, while GMB members scabbed. During the teachers strike, the NUT struck while all the other teaching unions and UNISON scabbed. The thing which stops workers scabbing is not union membership, but generalised militancy and workers solidarity. This takes years to build up, and there is no easy answer.

The same goes for union membership in general. Union membership only gives you benefits if workers are organised enough to take action in their own interests - so just recruiting agency workers is not enough.

this workers co-op idea is well-intentioned, but the theory behind it is completely flawed. The idea has the same logic to starting up cooperative businesses instead of working in capitalist ones. These ideas were widely held in the workers movement in the past, but were demonstrated wrong over the past 200 years.

The problem with co-op's is that they still exist within the capitalist market system. They are subject to the same pressures from the market as capitalist businesses. If the price of the goods they provide on the market go down and profits fall, capitalist businesses have to cut wages and jobs. Workers can respond to this with industrial action. In co-op's they can't strike against themselves, so they're forced to lower their own wages and cut their own jobs. Either that or they'll go out of business.

So co-op's either maintain their principles and go under, or they become "successful" and just like all other capitalist businesses - see that there is no qualitative difference for workers between Waitrose (a co-op) and Sainsbury's for example.

apologies, I don't mean to be patronising. However, I do believe you have a romanticised view of the unions, which you outlined further in this post, so I'll deal with that shortly.

I gave my comments on that in my first post.

now, it is going to be difficult to have a serious conversation if you are going to use straw men like trying to say that my (or indeed anyone's) position is to just tell workers to make "revolution".

I think there are two problems with this statement. Firstly is the idea that "we" are separate from agency or permanent workers, and that it is our job to "organise" them: I don't see things like that. I'm a worker who shares a common interest with all other workers, so I want to do what I can to join together with other workers to deal collectively without common problems. Secondly, "unionisation" is not a strategy. Unionisation is not a benefit for working people. What benefits workers, is collective organisation and self-activity. Unions usually grow off the backs of that - but the unions are parasitical off that, an attempt to divert workers organisation into their own, divisive and anti-working class bureaucracy.

any agency which took the lowest fee, and chucked workers when demand was low would outcompete a co-op. Please give me one example of a "successful" radical co-op, that has more than about five members or lasts longer than a couple of years.

again, this is a strawman position

I think we should get involved in useful reforms of capitalism in the mean time.

unions have never worked for working people.

here your romanticism of the unions is clear. I would like to know what your personal experience of and involvement in unions is?

One thing unions certainly don't need, is more power. Unions consistently divide workers up so that different groups can be defeated one at a time, sabotage disputes, victimise militants, and are basically a radical part of the capitalist management structure.

like I said, I outlined its in my first post:

If you want specifics, in my workplace I have helped agency workers with things like promised pay rises which weren't met, and in general try to help any who've been in post longer than one year be made permanent, as accords to my councils procedures. In doing that me and my permanent co-workers show support for the agency workers. Also which run focus on problems which affect all workers, like management bullying and excessive workloads, and to my union meetings we try to encourage agency workers to attend, as well as members of the unions, and non-union members, private contractors, etc. There we try to get everyone together to support one another; I have another thread about one current dispute attempting to get a sacked worker reinstated.

just a few quick comments.
Temp workers are often much more expensive, it is the flexibility that employers are buying.
A temp agency run by workers: AFAIAW reseatch done on this suggests that it would be able to undercut other agencies and offer better pay in most circumstances. As to temp agencies being run as co-ops it would probaly work for very well difined groups in certain locations e.g. cycle couriers in London, but this isn't likely to have much impact on most temps situation so offers little in the way of the class struggle (though obv for workers who lives would be improved, it could be worthwhile). To be in any way effective as a statergy, temp agencies would have to run by national workers organisations with large enough resources to be able set up in all major cities, Unfortunately this would mean the mainstream unions at present, who seem unlikey eo do this and even if they did, would probaly compete with each other negating any benefits. It certainly would be possible IIRC there was a unoin run agency in the midlands in the eighties (i'm not at home so can't check) and of course the CGT 's work bereaus ( in very different times and circumstances).

Basically IF a worker run temp agency on a large enough scale did exist it would certainly be able to exert signifcant pressure, how likely it is that this could actually happen....

I agree with you Steven but that's a bad example, Waitrose is a nicer place to work than Sainsbury's.