The Labor Market has Feminized all its Workers

[At The New York Times Erin] Hatton writes that the temp industry sprung up near the height of unions’ power with the ability to skirt labor protections by “casting temp work as ‘women’s work,’ and advertising thousands of images of young, white, middle-class women doing a variety of short-term office jobs.” This strategy “exploited the era’s cultural ambivalence about white, middle-class women working outside the home. Instead of seeking to replace ‘breadwinning’ union jobs with low-wage temp work, temp agencies went the culturally safer route: selling temp work for housewives who were (allegedly) only working for pin money.” They were thus able to create an entire industry of low-pay, unstable work without running into battles with unions or having to offer the employees workplace protections like health benefits, organizing rights and anti-discrimination laws.