This article is from last year but still pertinent. It was brought to my attention via this Upworthy video (http://www.upworthy.com/his-first-day-on-the-job-was-also-his-last-the-tragic-story-of-day-davis?c=ufb1). Having worked via a temp agency in the past to gain experience in an alternative career field, I find the recent proliferation of temp hiring to be troublesome. What once was a means to subsidize a temporary labor shortfall has now become industry standards. As the article states, it is nearly impossible to find factory and warehouse work without first having to go through a temp firm. Currently where I live in PA most of the factories aren't even hiring but only utilizing temporary workers, using the system to "weed" out employees.
This is an excellent investigative article concerning the issues surrounding the use of temporary workers. As one commenter stated, "[t]emping is the new slavery system. " I'm not so sure I would go that far with the analogy, but it is damn close.
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In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.
This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.
The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies – Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overs
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The proportion of temp workers in the labor force reached its peak in early 2000 before the 2001 slump and then the Great Recession. But as the economy continues its slow, uneven recovery, temp work is roaring back 10 times faster than private-sector employment as a whole – a pace “exceeding even the dramatic run-up of the early 1990s,” according to the staffing association.
The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed - ProPublica
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