2. Service Work
• We are a service economy in the United States
• Service work has grown to 80% of all work done in this country.
• This is in contrast to the previous chapter
• Service work tends to be of to kinds
• Interactive service work which uses emotional labor tends to receive lower pay in
routinized work
• Specialist service work which uses knowledge labor
• This doesn’t mean only one uses emotional or knowledge labor, it is just what is emphasized
3. Service Work
• Service work involved interacting face-to-face or by voice
with customers (people).
• There is also an emotional element
• Recall Hochschild’s work on flight attendants
• Emotional labor not only covers things like attitude, but
dress as well
• This is sometimes termed aesthetic labor
4. The Rise of Fordism and Face-to-
Face Interactive Service Work
• Service work used to be being a domestic servant. However, this had died out by the
1920s
• In the first stores, young men or boys would work and live in a shop. They helped
prepare all the items sold and had knowledge of the store. Work relationships were very
personal as was the service
• Larger scale department stores began to develop in the 19th century. This contained
different departments with their own register and staff. Work relationships were not as
personal. Women had a larger role here because they were cheaper to employ.
5. The Piggly Wiggly
• Starting in 1916, the Piggly Wiggly was a transformation from the full-service
store where the shopkeeper would have knowledge of items, get them, weigh
them out, know how much to charge, and deliver
• The new system involved customers retrieving their own products. This required
the customer to have the knowledge of products. They were rung up at the
counter. In effect, the worker was becoming deskilled and increasingly female
and lower paid
• The customer became upskilled and saved money and time
• It became a customer assembly line and retailing became industrialized.
6. Retail
• As retail became industrialized, the main jobs became stocking or checkout.
• These jobs required very little skill and thus pay was lower
• These jobs were repetitive and monotonous
• This extended to managers as well who had no control over what to purchase, the price, store layout,
or special sales.
7. McDonalds
• McDonald’s was to restaurants what Piggly Wiggly was to retail or Ford for cars
• McDonald’s introduced the assembly line in the kitchen.
• They produced a high volume of standardized food for a cheap price
• Food prep was fragmented into simple tasks with the use of single task machines.
• Buzzers and lights would indicate when to flip the burger or lift the fries from the oil.
8. McDonald’s Customer
• As in the case of the Piggly Wiggly, the customer took over some of the work
at McDonald’s
• They lined up to place their order. Before this, it was taken from a waitstaff.
• Instead of using China or other plates, disposable products were used, and
the customer took care of this.
• The price of a hamburger dropped by half in this system
• This model was strictly applied to all restaurants
9. McDonald’s Worker
• The restaurant worker, in this case, has become deskilled
• As far as aesthetic labor, their appearance and dress is controlled by company policy
• They have a script of what they are to say and how they should respond to customers
• Workers are controlled both by managers and customers who both have the same
interests: quick and courteous service.
• At the same time, their jobs are low paid and tend to be unrewarding
• At a time, bad jobs were referred to as McJobs.
10. Pre-Fordist versus Fordist Service systems
• Craft skills and full service
• Stationary assembly
• Non-standardized parts
• High quality
• Personal Service
• Fragmented and simplified work
tasks
• Partial Service
• Standardized parts
• Assembly line process
• Lower quality and impersonal
service
Note that these are very similar to the previous chapter on industrialism
11. Face-to-Face Interactive Work:
Neo-Fordism and Post-Fordism
• If you recall from the last chapter, one of the problems of
Fordism came from the workers. It is the same case with
fast food
• The fast food industry has the highest turnover in the
country—as high as 300%. This is expensive for a company.
• There is also consumer dissatisfaction as things such as
upselling or the rituals of self service, the perceived
unhealthiness, or the assembly line standardized service
experience
12. Face-to-Face Interactive Work: Neo-Fordism and Post-
Fordism (cont.)
• The other problem is the limit of options. McDonalds faced competition from other types of fast food.
• Additionally, McDonalds has expanded into other parts of the world.
• What works in one country does not work in others.
• McDonalds needed to become flexible while keeping their business model. Their adaptations to workers
and consumers are as follows:
• Job rotation among team members and the ability to make suggestions
• Increased choice for consumers (but still limited to narrow product line)
• Healthier options with environmentally friendly packaging
13. Has Fast Food Really Changed?
• Despite the pressures of Neo-Fordism, fast food restaurants still
rely on the industrialized Fordist method as the primary way to
achieve efficiency
• Assembly line production still dominates the industry
14. Voice-to-Voice Interactive Service Work
• Call centers have expended dramatically due to advances in communication technology.
• Globalization has also allowed call centers to be in other parts of the world—taking
advantage of lower labor costs
• The majority of workers tend to be women. However, they are underrepresented in high-
skill specialized customer service.
• Call centers tend to use scripted lines, short-cycle routine tasks (repeated phone calls)
and involved emotional labor.
• This work is monitored more closely than other types of work through software
technology.
15. Indian Call Centers
• Some of the main reasons call centers locate to India
• Labor costs are much lower
• Availability of well-educated English-speaking staff
• No trade unions
• Tax incentives and a willingness to relax regulations
• Problems presented:
• Must work night and adjust schedule to US and UK time zones
• Women working at night frowned upon. Not safe to travel
• They must conceal their location. Take ”Western” names and change their accent. They must get
training in Western cultural training
• Having a ‘fake’ life during work is alienating. But this flexibility is an example of Neo-Fordism
16. Summary
• Service work is either face-to-face or voice-to-voice. Both require emotional
labor
• Service work generally viewed unfavorably and considered mundane and
unskilled.
• However, younger people see it differently and new jobs will involve an
upskilling of social interaction skills.
• Unlike Industrial Fordism, Service Fordism does not seem to be transforming to
Neo-Fordism or Post-Fordism at the same rate.
