Abstract

This study is an analysis of the temporary help industry in America, and the empowerment strategies used by temporary workers to overcome the barriers and limitations of their employment. Network-building and the use of web technologies are analyzed as strategies to improve the conditions of temping. Websites and zines are understood as creating spaces for dialogue, dissent, and organizing, which may overcome the spatial separation and surveillance of temps in the workplace; a feature which discourages traditional modes of organizing. Network-building is analyzed in terms of it's efficacy in integrating the emerging temporary worker's movement into the broader social struggles of postructuralism, and anti-globalization. Web communication and technology are examined to determine how the inherent fluidity and fragmenation of this medium, can enhance or impede collective efforts to improve the conditions of temporary work.