Front-Line Workers in the Global Service Economy: Overshadowed and Overstretched in the Fast Fashion World

The book Front-Line Workers in the Global Service Economy investigates the lived experiences of salespersons in the fast fashion industry and the possibilities of collective action and structured forms of resistance to global trends. It reveals the pressure toward work devaluation in low-skilled service sectors and its devastating effects on workers.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 190 pages
\n Publication date: 18 June 2021
\n Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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Walking around the commercial streets of New York, San Francisco, Milan, London, or Paris, and looking at the succession of multinational chain store windows, you can easily forget what country you are in. However, if you hear the small talk among the employees, you hear very different stories. In New York, a 30-year-old woman is worried because she does not know if she will work enough hours to make a living the following week—whereas, in Milan, a mother of the same age knows she will work 20 hours a week but is concerned about whether her contract will be renewed at the end of the following month.

Following three years of fieldwork, which included 100 in-depth interviews with front-line retail workers and unionists in New York City and Milan, Front-Line Workers in the Global Service Economy investigates both the lived experiences of salespersons in the fast fashion industry—a retail sector made of large chains of stores selling fashion garments at low prices—and the possibilities of collective action and structured forms of resistance to these global trends. In the face of economic globalization and vigorous managerial efforts to minimize labor costs and to standardize the retail experience, mass fashion workers' stories tell us how strong the pressure toward work devaluation in low-skilled service sectors can be, and how devastating its effects are on the workers themselves.

The book also explores the ways in which front-line retail workers are organizing and resisting these trends, both within individual stores and through broader networks of labor organizations and social movements. It highlights the importance of collective bargaining and the power of workers to negotiate better working conditions and wages. It also examines the challenges that workers face in organizing and sustaining collective action, such as the lack of union representation, the high turnover rates, and the pressure to conform to company policies and practices.

Overall, Front-Line Workers in the Global Service Economy provides a valuable insight into the lives and experiences of front-line retail workers in the global service economy. It sheds light on the pressures and challenges that they face, and the ways in which they are organizing and resisting to improve their working conditions and the quality of their lives. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in labor studies, social movements, and the politics of globalization.

\n Weight: 314g\n
Dimension: 152 x 227 x 20 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781032005591\n \n