Professor Vosko examines two dimensions of temporary work: (1) it is brokered (by a recruiter or staffing service); and (2) it is precarious in several ways—it may be unstable, it places workers in a weak bargaining position, and it severs workers from mechanisms of social protection. The book begins with a review of how Canada and other industrialized countries experienced shifts in social and political norms governing the employment relationship during the 20^th century. If the SER represents a successful move away from the commodity status of labour power during the post-WWII period, the recent growth of Temporary Employment Relationships (TER) represents a retrenchment from it. To better understand the modern TER, Vosko writes the history of labour market intermediaries in Canada. This very useful history chronicles the intimate connection between labour market intermediaries and immigration to Canada. Private Employment Agencies, the precursors of the modern temporary help industry (THI), played a significant role in the late 19^th and early 20^th century in recruiting and placing immigrant male labour for agriculture and industry, on one hand, and female labour for domestic work on the other. In that period, activism from labour, immigrant communities, and the state itself succeeded in limiting the commodity status of labour through policy and practices contributing to building the SER. However, these efforts were most concentrated and most successful in (native) male dominated occupations thus leaving women in female dominated occupations working in less regulated and more vulnerable conditions—a result which now “haunts” workers of both genders because the TER replicates many of the features of female-dominated employment. These conditions made possible the rapid growth of the modern THI from the 1940s to the 1970s. The industry enabled large employers who adhered to the SER for their primarily male workforce to build “dualism” in their employment systems. Because the THI’s recruiting practices first targeted white middle-class married women, the latter considered by labour and capital as “secondary” workers, this management practice could escape scrutiny. Thus grew the THI “below the radar screen” of conventional collective bargaining and public policy. The attention of male-centered labour activism and policy-making was turned elsewhere. Chapters 4 and 5 document the growth of the THI during the 1980s and 1990s in Canada. Vosko argues that the rapid growth of the THI during the period represents the use of TERs as an integral part of workforce management tools and no longer as a stop-gap measure. The author relies upon qualitative interviews with workers, client firms, THI industry and government officials. Vosko argues that the growth of the THI is not only a means of extension of the TER to growing numbers of workers but that it extends “feminized” terms of employment (read casual, unprotected) to an increasing share of the workforce, including male workers. In Chapter 6, Vosko explores the current state of regulation of the TER in Canada and internationally. The author identifies the main challenge of regulation for all provincial and national governments as well as for supranational authorities (International Labour Organization, European Union) as that of providing health and safety protection, benefits, and security to workers employed via triangular temp relationships (worker-staffing service-customer business). Resting her argument on evidence from national legislation in selected European countries and elsewhere, the author makes the case for Canada’s national and provincial governments to adopt a regulatory regime for TERs that differs from that for the SER but need not result in inferior protection, benefits, and security for the latter. The chapter characterizes the 1997 ILO Convention on Private Employment Agencies as a missed opportunity. It entailed the abandonment of …