ABSTRACT
The chapter aims at explaining how institutional settings interplay with employment quality for temporary agency workers. The focus for our study is how national and sectoral regulation on employment and representation influences job security for temporary agency workers at the workplace level, thereby contributing to shaping those workers’ employment quality.
By comparing two similar Belgian and Swedish workplaces, the chapter assesses how different social arrangements for TAW, including both regulatory settings at the national (industry) level and the collective practices of representation and voice of agency work at local levels, can explain agency workers’ experience of job security. As the two countries differ in terms of employment relations systems, regulation of TAW and representation structure, a comparative analysis is appropriate. Data were collected mainly through 47 semi-structured interviews lasting 60-120 minutes.
Our results show that national regulations and collective structures for representation shape the unions’ possibilities to represent agency workers and their general approaches towards TAW. Hence, our findings add to the understanding of the conditions contributing to job insecurity and representation insecurity for agency workers. Our study also shows that a strong representation structure at the client organization and inclusive attitudes towards agency workers, is a prerequisite, but it is not sufficient to guarantee security. This chapter indicates that national regulation granting agency workers on assignment access to collective voice in the client organization is crucial for job security. Thus, this chapter illustrates the multi-dimensionality of job quality by showing how job security and representation security are intertwined.
