Customer Abuse and Aggression as Labour Control Among LGBT Workers in Low-Wage Services
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2374576 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Suzanne Mill (0000-0003-1845-5954, McMaster University, corresponding author), Benjamin Owens (0009-0002-9906-8533, McMaster University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 776-793 |
| Publication date | 2023-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Work Employment and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/09500170211045843 |
| PMID | 37265819 |
| OpenAlex | W3208097094 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 44 |
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
Aggression · Assertiveness · Lesbian · Emotional Labor in Professions · Labor Movements and Unions · Psychology · Social Psychology · Workplace Violence and Bullying
‘Boys will be boys?’
‘We’re trying to reimagine this gig economy as a force for good’
He is the customer, I will say yes’
Queer Economic Geographies
Conceptualizing discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers in the unbounded workplace
Do transgender and non-binary workers in the U.S. retail and service sectors have lower quality jobs than their cisgender counterparts
Precarious Employment
Capital contradictions in the age of incorporation
Finding Work in the Age of LGBTQ + Equalities
Workers and Their Foes
Playing with Space to Deal with the Contradictions of Customer Sovereignty
The Sexuality of organization
Working Construction
Human Resource Management in Service Work
Gender Nonconformity as a Target of Prejudice, Discrimination, and Violence Against LGB Individuals
When the customer is wrong
Fast Food, Fast Talk
Communities of Coping
Controlling Service Work
The Customer is Always Right
From exclusion to inclusion
Something to Deal With’
Who's Got the Look?’ Emotional, Aesthetic and Sexualized Labour in Interactive Services
Gender Matters? Exploring How Gender is Negotiated in Service Encounters
Service work, social theory, and collectivism
Lesbian, gay and bisexual earnings in the Canadian labor market
Ideology at work
Class, gender and the sweatshop
Sexual orientation discrimination
Emotional Labor in Service Work
Do Workplace Gender Transitions Make Gender Trouble
The Space Between
Manufacturing Sexual Subjects
The Figures, The Personality and The Bums
Consumers' Reports
Customer Violence and Employee Health and Safety
The nature of front-line service work
Customer abuse to service workers
Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality
The rhetoric of the consumer and customer control in China
Purple-Collar Labor
Gendered Homophobia and the Contradictions of Workplace Discrimination for Women in the Building Trades
Workers, Managers, and Customers
No Retribution for Being Gay
No, We Don't Provide That Service
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |