In Space

You weren't invited to the company picnic again, and the cruel, cautionary yellow of that "visitor" badge has worn a sizable hole in your hope, not to mention your résumé. During the flu season, you dream fruitlessly of foreign concepts like sick pay. But, like last winter, you give in to the silly notion that eating is indeed a necessity, and you once again fight the phlegm in the makeshift infirmary of a cubicle undecorated with cute photos and this-defines-me cartoons. Perhaps, if you had been deemed savable by the complimentary flu shots doled out with Snoopy Band-Aids to the permanent staff, things would be different. You are a stepchild of frustrated and underappreciated irony, at once indispensable and expendable. You are a permatemp, and you are not alone. What options, aside from unemployment, do the multiplying "temporary" or "contingent" workers have when the way in which they receive their paychecks influences their perceived worth as individuals? It's not exactly pleasant to be a plain-bellied Sneetch in an office of star-bellied workers. Yet America's labor force, across skills, is losing star power. With job growth at a standstill at 2004's outset, temporary employment continues to rise as businesses fill permanent positions with workers treated as impermanent. How do you deal with the insecurity of working a job for longer than a year but always being labeled a temp? If the middle man cannot be eliminated, can the temporary agency at least be made responsible for ensuring a better quality of working life for its forsaken legion of cash cows? You don't have to be the next Norma Rae of the temping factory to question your rights as an American worker. FairJobs.org offers a wealth of temporary-labor-related information right at those underpaid, carpal-tunneled wrists. Administered by the North American Alliance for Fair Employment, FairJobs.org strives for "equal treatment regardless of employment status." In addition to detailing the history of contingent work and labor legislation, the Web site culls up-to-date labor news from the headlines of various publications. In its impressive annotated Web directory, FairJobs.org makes contact information available for various little-known local organizations interested in informing the voiceless worker. Temps often fall through the unionizing cracks, and FairJobs.org shows that it doesn't have to be true that the best temporary workers are the most scared and desperate. Your rights don't have to be temporary just because your income is.