Transnational regulation of temporary agency work compromised partnership between Private Employment Agencies and Global Union Federations

This article critically assesses the potential for the international regulation of temporary agency work (TAW) through building partnership between the Global Union Federations (GUFs) and major Private Employment Agencies (PrEAs). Given the limits of existing national and international regulation of TAW, particularly in developing countries, and the current deadlock in dialogue through the International Labour Organization, the argument of this article is that Transnational Private Labour Regulation (TPLR) offers a unique opportunity to establish a basis for minimum standards for temporary agency workers. This article goes on to propose three potential TPLR frameworks that, although compromised, are transparent, fair and sufficiently elastic to accommodate the distributive and political risks associated with partnership. They also offer important gains, namely increasing the competitive advantage of the PrEAs involved, minimum standards for agency workers and ‘field enlarging’ strategies for the GUFs and their affiliates

Measuring Young Graduates’ Job Quality Through a Composite Indicator

The aim of the article is to propose a job quality composite indicator (JQCI) by which to measure the quality of young graduates’ jobs. We design JQCI by grouping jobs’ objective and perceived characteristics into three dimensions—economic, professional, and work–life balance—following a theory-driven approach, and weighting each dimension according to its importance. We apply the resulting JQCI to a sample of Italian graduates 3 years after graduation and validate it by measuring their motivation to leave their jobs, assuming that poor quality could be a reason to want to leave a job. We find that the professional dimension scores the highest. Relevant differences in job quality are related to individual (gender, degree level, disciplinary field, whether the graduate worked while studying) and organizational characteristics (company size). Implications for policy-makers and for firms interested in attracting and retaining Generation Y workers are discussed