Abstract
This study examines the relation between customer abuse and aggression, the gender and sexual expression of workers, and labour control in low-wage services. In-depth interviews with 30 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)1 low-wage service sector workers reveal how customer abuse and aggression works in consort with management strategies to reproduce cis- and heteronormativity. Customer abuse and aggression disciplined worker expressions of non-normative gender and sexual identities, leading to concealment and self-policing. Management was complicit in this dynamic, placing profitability and customer satisfaction over the safety of LGBT workers, only intervening in instances of customer abuse and aggression when it had a limited economic impact. It is posited that customer abuse and aggression is not only a response to unmet expectations emanating from the labour process but is also a mechanism of labour control that disciplines worker behaviour and aesthetics, directly and indirectly, by influencing management prerogatives.
Highlights
Low-wage service work has expanded over the past 50 years, often rivalling employment in goods producing sectors in the labour markets of industrialized countries.2 A sizable body of research has described the distinct attributes of this work, examining how customer interaction affects the labour process and the wellbeing of workers (Lopez, 2010)
Customer abuse and aggression emerged as a widespread issue facing LGBT workers: half of the 204 workers in the low-wage service sector reported experiencing abuse and/or aggression from customers, and workers who were transgender and/or racialized as people of colour reported customer abuse and aggression at significantly higher rates than those who were cisgender and/or racialized as white (Mills et al, 2020)
LGBT workers’ experiences of customer abuse and aggression inform understandings about how gender/ sexual expression operates alongside gender and race in service labour processes
Summary
Low-wage service work has expanded over the past 50 years, often rivalling employment in goods producing sectors in the labour markets of industrialized countries. A sizable body of research has described the distinct attributes of this work, examining how customer interaction affects the labour process and the wellbeing of workers (Lopez, 2010). Both the emotional labour required and the gendered commodification of workers’ bodies and identities as part of the service experience— in workplaces where sexualized performances of female heterosexuality are expected—renders women workers vulnerable to verbal, physical and sexual harassment (Filby, 1992; Forseth, 2005; Guerrier and Adib, 2000; Warhurst and Nickson, 2007; Waring, 2011) In these conceptualizations, customer abuse and aggression in low-wage services is the result of a labour process that creates an illusion of customer sovereignty, and/or fosters gendered customer expectations. These findings have yet to be extended to include abuse and aggression from customers, instead focusing on relationships with co-workers and managers
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