Employment

Temp workers seek security

by Kristen Lombardi

You might not have heard of the obscure, rather meaningless phrase "contingent work," otherwise defined as unstable employment such as part-time, temporary, on-call, and contract jobs -- yet.

But by the end of today, labor officials, social workers, clergy, and community activists are intent on making sure everyone knows the phrase, and well. These folks, among others, will gather at the State House at 4:30 p.m. to kick off the first-ever March for a Temp Worker Bill of Rights and to draw attention to the escalating trend of contingent work, which now accounts for 30 percent of all jobs.

At least 200 demonstrators will then travel part of the Freedom Trail, from the State House to Faneuil Hall. Because that stretch of the trail also happens to play host to 103 temp-placement agencies, demonstrators will visit the largest ones in hopes of getting them to support the "bill of rights" outlining equal pay and benefits and job security for all temporary workers.

"It will be fun, colorful. It will be like a coming-out party for the contingent-work movement," promises Jason Pramas of the Campaign on Contingent Work, a coalition of 40 religious, labor, and social-welfare groups sponsoring the march.

The Campaign on Contingent Work started organizing back in 1996 to fight for good jobs for temp workers. And though it may sound like an oxymoron, these temp workers actually want permanency and security. "We want to stop the conversion of good jobs into bad jobs," Pramas says, referring to the 20-year-long trend of replacing full-time employees with part-time temporary workers who don't receive costly benefits. To this end, the campaign staff (all three of them), as well as a bevy of volunteers, have set up shop in Chinatown and meticulously studied the temp industry.

Fruits of this labor will go on display today, when Pramas and his colleagues release "What's Wrong with Temp Work?," an in-depth report on the fast-growing yet largely unregulated industry. As many as 350,000 Massachusetts employees -- or 12 percent of the state's work force -- hold temp jobs that average only nine weeks each. The report basically argues that these jobs are "employment relationships," and harmful ones at that.

"By and large," Pramas says, "temp work is not a bridge to better employment. It's a train running horizontally from one crappy job to another crappy job."

The contingent-work-awareness movement is very much tied to the high-profile rebellion against corporate globalization today -- as evidenced by the protests in Seattle and Washington, DC, this past year. Contingent work, after all, is made possible by American companies' attempts to restructure to cut labor costs and thus compete in a global market.

Much like their allied protesters, those with the Campaign on Contingent Work are vowing a fight to the end. Pramas, in fact, expects that Thursday's march represents merely the first in a series of future actions. Another will probably involve lobbying Massachusetts legislators to pass a proposed bill that would require equal pay and comparable benefits for temp workers as compared to permanent employees.

And since Pramas has spent 16 years as a temp in everything from factory work to Web editing, his firsthand knowledge of the contingent lifestyle is sure to bode well for the movement. "I busted my chops in a lot of dead-end temp jobs," he says. "I know how painful it gets."