No jobs, lots of work: The gendered rise of the temporary employment relationship in Canada, 1897-1997

This dissertation examines the history and evolution of the employment relationship associated with the contemporary temporary help industry in Canada from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Using gender as a central lens of analysis, it explores how, and to what extent, this employment relationship is becoming a norm for a more diverse group of workers in the Canadian labour market. In so doing, the dissertation develops the following argument: with the shift away from the standard employment relationship since the early 1970s and the coincident rise of the temporary employment relationship—two developments indicative of the feminization of employment—workers situated at the expanding margins of the labour market are increasingly treated like commodities.

A growing body of scholarship argues that the nature of employment is changing, citing the spread of non-standard forms of employment and women's rising and/or consistently high labour force participation rates as evidence of this claim. This dissertation confirms that important changes are indeed taking place in the labour market but it argues that the tenor and direction of these changes only come into full view when they are examined in light of continuity as well as change. To this end, it probes the shape of dualism in the Canadian labour market historically, paying particularly attention to its gendered and racialized character, through a case study of the temporary employment relationship.

The dissertation begins by providing a conceptual map for understanding and interpreting contemporary employment trends that engages in three broader theoretical inquiries: the investigation of labour power's peculiar commodity status under capitalism; the exploration of the rise and decline of the standard employment relationship as a normative model of employment; and the examination of the gendered character of prevailing employment trends. Following this overview, the body of the dissertation traces the history of the temporary employment relationship in Canada, examining how its three core actors—the temporary help agency, the customer and the worker—have adapted to shifting employment trends and gendered employment norms and negotiated developments at the regulatory level over the course of the twentieth century. In probing the evolution of the temporary employment relationship, it devotes special emphasis to examining the role and function of early precursors to the modern temporary help agency (e.g., private employment agents such as general labour agents and so-called padrones), its immediate forerunners (i.e., the ‘classic’ temporary help agency of the 1950s) and its most recent manifestation (i.e., the employment and staffing service). Although the dissertation focuses on the Canadian context, it also traces developments at the international and supra-national level throughout the twentieth century, developments that have often mirrored, frequently affected, and occasionally even prefigured trends in Canada.

Interdisciplinary in its focus, the dissertation approaches the evolution of the temporary employment relationship from a range of angles, building on scholarship from the fields of Law, History, Political Economy, Sociology and Industrial Relations. The research methodologies used include: archival/historical research; field observation; interviews with temporary help workers, agency managers and customers as well as government officials, representatives from organized labour and industry leaders; and analysis of industry, government and legal documentation at the municipal, provincial, national and supra-national levels.