Temping

[Ted Winslow]

"A French worker wrote as follows on his return from San Francisco: 'I
could never have believed that I was capable of working at all the trades I
practised in California.  I was firmly convinced that I was fit for nothing
but the printing of books ... Once I was in the midst of this world of
adventurers, who change their jobs as often as their shirts, then, upon my
faith, I did as the others.  As mining did not pay well enough, I left it
for the city, and there I became in succession a typographer, a slater, a
plumber, etc.  As a result of this discovery that I am fit for any sort of
work, I feel less of a mollusc and more of a man' (A. Corbon, _De
l'enseignement professionel, 2nd edn, p. 50)"
K. Marx, _Capital_, vol. 1, Penguin ed. p. 618

"if, at present, variation of labour imposes itself after the manner of an
overpowering natural law, and with the blindly destructive action of a
nautral law that meets with obstacles everywhere, large-scale industry,
through its very catastrophes, makes the recognition of variation of labour
and hence of the fitness of the worker for the maximum number of different
kinds of labour into a question of life and death.  This possibility of
varying labour must become a general law of social production, and the
existing relations must be adapted to permit its realization in practice.
That monstrosity, the disposable working population held in reserve, must
be replaced by the individual man who is absolutely available for the
different kinds of labour required of him; the partially developed
individual, who is merely the bearer of one specialized social function,
must be replaced by the totally developed individual, for whom the
different social functions are different modes of activity he takes up in
turn."
Ibid.

Ted Winslow
York University
Toronto

Doug wrote:


>This temp thread makes me think that it's politically wrong to name temp
>and part-time work as problems in themselves, rather than focusing on
>insecurity, low pay, and lack of benefits in general. And since there seem
>to be more than a few temporary and part-time workers who are not entirely
>unhappy with their work situation, denouncing their kind of employment as a
>general could alienate lots of people.
>
>Life is no picnic for lots of "full-time" workers, either. The BLS's new
>displaced worker survey <ftp://146.142.4.23/pub/news.release/disp.txt>
>reports in its opening paragraph:
>
>"A total of 3.6 million workers were displaced between January 1995 and
>December 1997 from jobs they had held for at least 3 years, the Bureau of
>Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  The
>number of displaced workers declined from 4.2 million in the previous
>survey that covered the period from January 1993 to December 1995.  Both
>surveys covered periods of strong employment growth and falling
>unemployment."
>
>Doug

Ted Winslow                          E-MAIL: WINSLOW at YORKU.CA
Division of Social Science           VOICE: (416) 736-5054
York University                      FAX: (416) 736-5615
4700 Keele St.
North York, Ont.
CANADA M3J 1P3