Between Keeping Your Head Down and Trying to Get Noticed: Agency Workers in French Car Assembly Plants

Christina Purcell, Paul Brook and Rosemary Lucas

management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, 2011, vol. 22, issue 2, 169-187

Abstract: Numerical flexibility is commonly promoted as a driver of employment growth. However, contingent work is frequently associated with “bad jobs”, particularly for those in low skilled occupations. Agency work is a common and growing form of contingent work and is often promoted as a tool for facilitating the labour market integration of young workers. In France, young agency workers make up a significant part of the labour force within car assembly plants. Studies have shown that these workers have harsher working conditions than permanent co-workers and are subject to a “despotic” factory regime. However, the triangular relationship, which frames the agency contract, may give rise to a more complex outcome in which the aspiration for stable employment mediates the coercion of labour market vulnerability.

Keywords: agency work; factory regimes; auto sector; agency autoworkers; hegemonic despotism; unions; labour process; Burawoy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J47 J50 J63 J71 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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