The dynamics of control of migrant agency workers: Over-Recruitment, ‘The Bitchlist’ and the enterprising-self

Tarrabain, Chloe; Thomas, Robyn

Abstract

This article explores migrant workers’ experiences of organisational control while undertaking temporary agency work. This study is based on a ‘covert’ ethnographic study set at a temporary employment agency that short-term contracts workers to the catering and hospitality industry. The findings show how control is perceived by workers to emerge from the over-recruitment, coupled with the allocation of work through an informal ranking system. Migrant workers’ specific socio-economic circumstances and their race and gender identities informed their responses to these systems, resulting in the buy-in to discourses of enterprise. The result was actors who are complicit, if not active, participants in self and peer regulation. As such, this article contributes to the literature on enterprising-selves, control of temporary agency workers and the wider manufacturing consent literature.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 5, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 7, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 23, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 9, 2024
• Journal: Work, Employment and Society
• Print ISSN: 0950-0170
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8722
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 38
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 27-43
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170221100934
• Keywords: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science, Accounting, control, enterprising-selves, migrant workers, temporary agency work; agency work; agency workers
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9891340
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170221100934