Passing variables

Is it possible to pass a variable from one workflow to another in Automator?

I'm trying to use a single workflow to act on a large list of items. It needs to act on each item individually, so I would like it to accept a starting variable fed from another workflow.

The only workaround I can think of is to have the first workflow store the variable in a reusable text file, and then have the other workflow fetch the content of that file and use it to set the variable.