Receiving training and development is vital for any employee to advance their career. Research from Umeå University highlights how temporary workers are often frozen out of any training opportunities provided by their employer, however.
The findings emerged after exploring the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey, which gathered data from nearly 23,000 workers from 35 European countries.
“Our study shows that temporary workers receive less employer-paid training than permanent workers,” the researchers explain. “This is a very important finding, as it illustrates one of the mechanisms of how temporary employment may strengthen labor market inequalities rather than working as a stepping-stone to more secure employment.”
Union support
Interestingly, this situation seems to be greatly supported by the presence of union representation, as this appeared to improve the communication between workers and employers. The researchers found that having union representation in the workplace helped to provide a constant source for employees to talk to, which was beneficial to both permanent and temporary workers alike.
“Having the possibility to knock on the office door of a coworker who is a union representative is helpful for everyone, regardless of the type of employment contract,” the authors explain. “We argue in the paper that by strengthening the communication between workers and employers, employee representatives may argue in favor of developing the competencies of all workers, regardless of their employment contract type.”
Similar findings emerged in a study from Cornell, which showed that temp workers can see a 21% rise in their average income when they’re employed by companies with a unionized workforce.
The researchers set out to explore the impact collective bargaining has on the so-called “temp wage gap”, which describes the wage penalty often attached to the fixed-term contracts of temporary workers. While there was an expectation that unions would be able to reduce this pay penalty, the authors were surprised that this only appeared to be the case when there was a more adversarial relationship between management and the union.
“The findings may rankle some ‘progressive’ unionists,” the researchers say. “Old-school, adversarial, non-cooperative unionization is out of vogue. And there may be a number of good reasons why. But at least with respect to helping non-traditional or non-core workers, unions are much more helpful when going head-to-head with management, rather than partnering with them.”
Training gap
Despite being a rising tide that lifts all boats, the Umeå paper nonetheless shows that union representation does still benefit permanent employees more than their temporary peers, especially when it comes to receipt of training from one’s employer.
“Greater union coverage means more bargaining power in negotiations with the government and with other social partners when amending laws and regulations,” the authors say. “Our results suggest that these actions tend to support permanent workers to a greater extent than temporary workers.”
As a result, the authors believe that temporary employment nonetheless plays a role in any social inequality that may exist in a society as even trade unions are unlikely to level up prospects between temporary and permanent employees.
“We worry that if we all do not start paying more attention to labor market inequalities, they will deepen,” the authors conclude. People who are already in a vulnerable position will become even more insecure. And employment stability matters for many aspects of life, such as mental health, well-being, and possibilities to establish a family.”
