- v WorkingUSA THE JOURNALOF LABOR AND SOCIETY Editorialand AdministrativeStaff Pubtisher: M.E. SHARPE Editor IMMANUELNESS Chief Operating Officer: VINCENTFUENTES Editoriat Director: PATRICIAA. KOLB Production Director: CARMENP. CHETTI JournalProgram Manager DEBRAE. SOLED pi CopyEditor: SUSANBURKE Compositor..YOLANDAGAVAGHAN Advertising: BARBARALADD Customer Service: SORINAPOP EditorialAdvisoryBoard Elaine Bernard,Director, Harvard Trade Union Program; Barry Bluestone, Professor, University of Massachusetts/Boston; Paul Buhle, Professor, Brown University; JeremyBrecher, author and journalist; Mary Hatwood Futrell, President, Education International; Michael Goldfield, Professor, Wayne State University; Lois Gray, Professor, Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Robert Heilbroner, Emeritus Professor of Economics, the New School; Gerald Horne, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; ErnestoJofre,Manager, Amalgamated Northeast Region, UNITE; Steven Leberstein,Executive Director, Center for Worker Education, City College of New York; Steven London, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College, CUNY; Ray Marshall, University of Texas, former Secretary of Labor; Paula Rayman, Director, Radcliffe Public Policy Institute; Steve Schlossberg, former Deputy Undersecretary of labor; William Usery, Mediator, former Secretary of Labor and FMCS Director; CornellWest, Professor, Department of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University;JosephWilson, Professor, Graduate Center for Worker Education, Brooklyn College, CUNY; 8 Stephen P. Yokich, President, United Auto Workers (UAW). WorkingUSA rqmns on and analyzesall aspcets of the US. labormovement, mechanical, ~oecQying.Rcording.ar otherwisewithoutpamissionin writing workforc~acd related wblic Pdiw in a manner that mwms the interests of fromtheeowrinbt.-- holda. wakingpeopleandfamilia.Thevi&sex~by&&not~y PbotoeopyInlalllltioalorU-IntbcUSA: ItanFecCodcfarthisprMicatior, reflectthoseofthe WorkingUSA staffor editorialboard. is 1089-701lROOO $9.50+ 0.00. TheItem FecCode forthisp~blicatimindicate8 CoWright8M01b~~Sbupqk~~~~:1~7011)kplblirbcdrhatauthai~ontophd~it~~farintemalor~useirpledbythe qua~Ialyby M.E. 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Editor of WorklngUH Political ScienceDqrartmmt, BdynCoUcg5 City To order50 or more copies, pleasecall the Sheridan RessReprint Department UnivasifyofNewYork, doGraduate Center forWorka Eduatioq 99 Hudson at 1-800-352-2210; outsidelheUSA,pleasecall 1-717-632-3535; or fax 1-717- sUm(3d floor),New York.NY 10013.WorkingWwill ddadyoriginal 633-8900. manureriprsthat are not cumntly underreview elwwhere. @Thetertpapausdinthisplblieatimm~~heminLnlrm~adsofl\mai- Advatising,marketing. and otha business colrespondenceshouldbeaddressed can National Standardforlnformation SciencesPmanencc of Paper for Rinted to: MrkingOH 80 Business Park Drive.Armon14NY 10504.Advenisingratu Library Materialg ANSI 239.48. rent on request. Call Barbara Ladd at 1-800-541-6563 or fax 914-273-2106. WlngOZA is indacedlabstractedinEmnLit,SociologicalAhF~,PAIS, hliti- No pan of this publication may be reproduced, storcd in a retrieval system, or col Science Absnacrs, The LP/tlnder The Alternative Press In& and Wikon transmittedin any formor by any means,elemmic. elect~oaatic,magneticlapg Social Scienm Index. Visit the M.E.Sharpehome page on thew01rld Wide Web at http://www.mesharpe.com. \> "Never a Fee.! The Miracle of the Postmodern Temporary Help and Staffing Agency George Gonos i Historica I and lega I research challenges the sta ffng industry's claim that it charges "no fees" to workers, and provides scholarly support for the spreading "right- to-know" movement among temps and contract workers for the disclosure of hidden, and often exorbitant, agency markups. Temporaryworkers are never charged afee $any kind. -National Association of Temporary Services ONJTBuy Jobsn-that was the slogan of the old ' Industrial Workers of the World as they campaigned in Spokanein 1909against the excessive fees charged by the seedy employment agencies that lined the streets hiring workers for the abundant jobs in lumbering, railroads, construc- tion, and farmwork. In the churning turn-of-the-century economy in which millions of workers found themselves con- stantly on the move in search of their next job, the exorbitant GEORGE GONOS is assistant proJssor ofeconomics and employment relations at the State Uni- versity $New York at Potsdam, and active in adwcncy qpbrtsfir temps and other contingent work- ers. He is writing a book on the rise ofthe tempormy help industry and the new wave offir-p@t labor market intermediaries in the United States. WorkingUSAvol. 4, no. 3, Winter 2000-2001,pp. 9-33. 0 2001 M.E. Sharpe. Inc. All rights r d . ISSN I~XWOII 12001 $9.51 t o.m WorkingUSA-Winter 2000-200 1 9 fees of the "labor sharksn-as they were often called-became a national scandal. "The necessity of paying for the privilege of going to work," the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations stated in 1912, "seems foreign to the spirit of American freedom and opportunity."' State governments responded by passing 1 extensive regulations, including ceilings on'fees, that lasted well into the post-World War I1 era. In more recent times, the need to "buy a job" has typically been considered a thing of the past. But with the rapid growth of the temporary help and staffingbusiness over the last twenty years, the practice of paying fees for job placement has made a big comeback. Among "temps" and "contract workers," anger over fees-"anti-agent venom," one story calls it-has been growing, andworkers' groupsin somestatesarebacking "right- to-know" legislation that would require today's new brands of labor agents-temp and staffingagencies, payrolling firms, and professional employer organizations(PE0s)-to reveal towork- ers the hidden fees in their employment contracts. Abill requir- ing rate disclosure recently introduced in Washington State received strongbipartisansupportand led to the greatestpublic airing of the issue to date.Though it failed (lastJanuary)against stiff industry opposition, it "showed how powerful the idea of J right-to-know is," according to Marcus Courtney of the Wash- ington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech), which drafted the bill. The fight againstexcessive feesfor employment is once again growingintoa nationalmovement that will not go away soon. Fees, now barraging consumers in seemingly every transac- tion, are in the news in other areas as well, in banking, ticket sales, college tuition, investments, phone bills, check cashing, and travel. (A legal battle is now taking place over local ordi- nances prohibiting banks from surcharging noncustomers at ATMs.) But.thesubject of fees chargedby employmentagencies "Never a Fee!" has scarcely received mention and remains a much overlooked aspect of the contemporary employment scene in the United States. One reason for this is the general acceptant-in official circles, at least--of the staffing industry's claimthat "temp work- ers" pay no fees, that this is a burden borne entirely by employ- ers, their business clients. Temporary help and staffing finns market themselves as a free "service" to workers, as clean, high- tech, no-strings-attached, postmodern employing institutions, a way of working just right for the stilluncommitted young or the b overcommitted parent in need of a flexible schedule. Through the early 1990s, a job seeker looking through the clas- P sified ads placed by temp and staffing agencies would have been assuaged by the following kinds of inducements: "No fees" ..."Notan agency-Never a fee"..."Nevera fee to the job seeker" ... "All Fees Company Paid"..."A fee-paid service" From its birth in the late 1940s, the staffing industry used these' claims to build what became by the 1970s and 1980s the fastest- growingindustry in the country. Nowadays, although ads placed by temp agencies dominatethe "help wanted sections of many major newspapers, industry representatives say the idea that they charge no fees to workers has become so widely accepted that these printed claims have become largely unnecessary. Still,the "no fees" claim is continually reiterated in broadcast ads, indus- try literature, and orientation videos used with job applicants in agency offices. If the existence of fees is acknowledged at all, they are said to be "client-paid," covered in their entirety by the industry's business clients, the firms that employ tem- porary help. But temp and contract workers are prone to a different view, seeing the spread betwe& the hourly rate charged to their em- ployer and their own