ILPC 2027

The paper presents the working conditions and workers’ responses in the gastronomy sector in Warsaw from the labour process theory perspective.

Gastronomy has rapidly grown since the 1990s with the growing popularity of ‘eating out’ and development of service sector. It is a fragmented sector, with multitude of small companies, low enforcement of Labour Law regulations and high informality. The jobs are aimed at young workers and are usually designed as temporary. Gastronomy is highly precarious in terms of access to different forms of security (Standing 2011) – low employment and job security, combined with transferring of obligation of skill development on the shoulders of workers’, poor work security that results in hazardous situations – both for workers and customers, in terms of health and safety, and almost non-existent representation security. The jobs fulfil the definition of ‘bad jobs’ (Kalleberg 2011, Warhurst et al. 2012), with relatively low wages, non-social, long working hours, low social security and very few opportunities for development. There is high flexibility (i.e. functional, numerical, financial) with various impact on workers. Flexible working hours enable combining work with other duties, but they hinder the control of work-life balance. Salaries often are unpredictable as partly depend on tips.

Work in gastronomy has its specifics: it is a combination of food processing, feeding people and creating an ambience that attracts customers. It is a multifaceted activity of physical and emotional labour, connected to the private sphere of traditionally feminine activities ‘cooking, cleaning, childcare’ (Shorter 1976), perceived as ‘natural’ and not needing any formal skills. This is visible at the workplaces where workers do not obtain formal on-the-job training and at the same time are deeply emotionally engaged in the process of feeding people. This combination of ‘natural’ or individual skills and emotional attitudes to the work enhances vulnerability of workers’ position, which is used by employers in form of low wages.

The paper looks at work organization in this segment, using the labour process theory – how their work is organized, how is it controlled, how skills are obtained. It aims to answer what kind of responses workers use, including the possibilities and types of workers’ resistance, as well as accommodation, compliance and consent (Thompson and Smith 2001). It looks at the obstacles and possibilities for collective action in gastronomy (see Silver 2009).

The gastronomy sector is un-researched in Poland, especially in terms of job quality and workers’ responses. This paper presents explorative research on that subject, aiming to provide empirical contribution to the labour process theory debate.

The research material consist of 14 interviews collected in Warsaw in years 2014-2015 with the use of qualitative methods: desk research, non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and material collected in on-going research project on resistance strategies of workers in vegan burgers bistro.

The paper presents work in progress stage of the research project.