摘要：The title and subtitle of this work accurately reflect its bold dual ambition to be both a study in the sociology of labor in contemporary capitalism and an ethnographic account of workers’ lived experience in a given historical moment and place. In the first of these guises, its purpose is to shed light on the contemporary logics of exploitation of labor power by examining closely, at ground level, the mechanisms of this exploitation as they affect the most precarious sectors of the working class. The chosen terrain of the study is the world of temporary employment agencies in Chicago, specialized in supplying manpower to private employers in light industry. The workers who seek employment via this route, having little choice in the matter, are indeed among the most socially vulnerable in U.S. society: undocumented immigrant workers, nearly all from Mexico and Central America, and chronically unemployed African-American men in Chicago and handicapped by a criminal record. This terrain is explored not just for its own sake but also on the hypothesis that it has broader systemic significance, as the embodiment of deep contemporary tendencies in the capitalist control over labor power.
