Intersectionality, subjectivity, collectivity and the union: a study of the ‘locked-out’ hotel workers in Toronto

Abstract

The study uses narrative analysis to understand the workers discursive constructions of their classed, gendered and racialized subjective identities and their investments into the collectivity of the union in the context of the lock-out. It goes beyond the Marxian analysis and uses poststructural feminist analysis to understand how the intersectional subjective identities are constituted and their interrelationship to the investments in and constitution of collectivities in the context of industrial action. The study is based on participant observation and interviews of hotel workers in the food and beverage section of a hotel in Toronto, who were locked-out in 2007, and of other workers on the picket line supporting the locked-out workers. These workers are members of UNITE HERE-Local 75 (Now HERE-Local 75), who had been in the process of renewal of their contracts at the time. I would argue that the intersectional subjectivities of the hotel workers and their investments in the collectivity of the union are fluid and relate to their pursuit of material and/or symbolic security through search for an identity as a unionized, active worker or an identity which is secure irrespective of the union.

Making Diversity Research Matter for Social Change: New Conversations Beyond the Firm

“…wage and social protection), which would certainly benefit this diverse workforce. While these forms of action feature in studies of organizing vulnerable workers in sociology and industrial relations, they are largely absent in the diversity literature in MOS (yet see Alberti, Holgate & Tapia, 2013;Soni-Sinha, 2013).…”

Perspectives on hospitality industry trade unionism in the UK and beyond

“…Remember: it is far easier to prevent union organizing from getting started in the first place than it is to campaign against a union once organizing has started. This is a milder example of the usually legal but ethically questionable techniques employed by management to discourage trade unions in hospitality (see Wood, 1997; and for more recent insights into such management-union relationships, including some fascinating historical studies, Basnyat et al, 2017;Cobble, 1991;Garb, 2014;Park, 2004;Raspadori, 2015;Soni-Sinha, 2012;Waddoups, 2000). Also worthy of note here is managers' support of their owners' ideologies.…”

Radicalizing diversity (research): Time to resume talking about class

“…Intersectional studies specifically integrating class in their analysis remain rare. Those that do, most often combine it with gender (e.g., Rickett & Roman, 2013; Slutskaya, Simpson, Hughes, Simpson, & Uygur, 2016) and, in fewer cases, also with race (Ruiz, Castro & Holvino, 2016; Soni‐Sinha, 2013). This strand of literature generally understands class as one of multiple relevant intersecting identities that explain the exclusion experienced by workers, forming a barrier to their full participation in work and society (e.g., Adib & Guerrier, 2003; Romani et al., 2019).…”

“…over lower‐rank ones (Zanoni, Janssens, Benschop, & Nkomo, 2010). Despite some increased attention for the lower‐ranks in the wake of the 2008 crisis (e.g., Cohen & Wolkowitz, 2018; Rajan‐Rankin, 2017; Soni‐Sinha & Yates, 2013), these studies remain today both numerically and theoretically marginal (van Eck, Dobusch & van den Brink, forthcoming). Scully and Blake‐Beard's (2006, p. 448) call for research on class that “provoke[s] a rethinking of how work gets done and who (at the juncture of many social identities) gets the returns” remains relevant.…”