Organising the US service sector in a time of austerity

Mia Gray

Chapter 24 in Handbook of Labour Geography, 2025, pp 408-420 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Organised labour has been in decline for many years across much of the industrialised world whilst wages have stagnated, precarity has flourished, and government austerity policies, state retrenchment, and continued privatisation have shrunk the social safety net. Despite the growth of service jobs around the world, most are in ununionised sectors of the economy. This chapter looks at three groups of workers in public and private sector unions – school teachers, Amazon warehouse workers, and hotel/resort staff – as they try to organise for decent pay and better working conditions. Spatial logics have been fundamental to union success in the service sector. The cases show the importance of institution building, acts of spatial solidarity, and leveraging power in some local economies to extend union power in other localities. Examining these service sector workers’ struggles to organise reminds us that labour organising is as much a spatial process as it is an economic and social one.

Keywords: Hospitality; Workers; Agency; Practice; Space; Time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781785363399
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