The dynamics of control of migrant agency workers: over-recruitment, "the bitchlist" and the enterprising-self

Tarrabain, Chloe and Thomas, Robyn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7887-8679 2024. The dynamics of control of migrant agency workers: over-recruitment, "the bitchlist" and the enterprising-self. Work, Employment and Society 38 (1) , pp. 27-43. 10.1177/09500170221100934

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	SAGE
ISSN:	0950-0170
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 May 2022
Date of Acceptance:	5 April 2022
Last Modified:	27 Mar 2024 14:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/149468

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