The Impact of Temporary Work on Organisational Identity and Reactions to Injustice in France

EuWorkers being more regulated than many other advanced economies, the French workplace is not immune to trends of precarious work and increasing contract duality. Consequently, the traditionally clear distinction between stable permanent contracts on the one hand and precarious temporary contracts on the other has become blurred. This dual labour market has major social consequences for those employed under temporary contracts, which often find themselves stuck in these jobs with few or no prospects for moving on to permanent ones. They receive less professional training and are paid less, which has implications for their life choices and overall wellbeing.

A new law introduced in late 2014, the “Contrat d’adhésion à un poste indéterminé”, stipulates that temporary workers who are offered jobs in the same field of activity as their previous roles must be presented with such offers. If the job offer is turned down, the employer or beneficiary company must notify the public employment office of the refusal and, if the rejection is repeated, the worker may be deprived of public unemployment benefits.

The Benefits and Challenges of Hiring Temporary Workers in France

Using a secondary dataset, this article explores the impact of temporary work on the organisational identification and reactions to injustice of voluntary temporary workers, contrasting them with low-autonomy/low-compensated permanent employees and non-volunteering temporary workers. It finds that the higher ingroup identification of voluntary temporary workers partially mediates their negative effects on collective response and positive effects on avoidant and self-centred reactions to injustice. The lower ingroup identification of non-volunteering temporary employees exacerbates their negative effects on both reactions to injustice and on work motivation.