The temp industry still does that, but it has taken on a more malignant function. Wall Street investors demand more profit every quarter. This forces management to cut costs aggressively, so they knife their workers in the belly. But cutting costs with temporary labor also works well, and has been increasing steadily. Henson doesn t provide figures on how this works, but it can be worked out fairly easily.
Regular workers soak up profits every day of the year.
He was forced into temporary clerical work for several years when he couldn t land anything better at a university in Chicago where he was working on his Ph.D. in the late 80s. Henson had an academic interest in how experience builds or degrades personal identity, and temporary work seemed like a great place to do research. What he found was that his own identity was assaulted in the atmosphere of condescension and contempt that often pervaded his temporary assignments. The monotony, stress, meaninglessness and poverty of temporary work are all there. I most appreciated Henson s exposure of the extra, sometimes arduous private effort that temporaries must put out to protect their self image.