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EMMA DOWLING
FORMULATING NEW SOCIAL SUBJECTS? AN INQUIRY INTO THE
REALITIES OF AN AFFECTIVE WORKER [1]
Emma Dowling [Birkbeck College, University of London]
In the immaterial labour
literature service work, as affective work, is considered one of its
components. Having worked as a waitress for ten years, I have been in a
privileged position to think about the lived experiences of such a worker. The
contribution I offer here is an autobiographical engagement with one particular
employment experience. I have not conducted a full-scale inquiry or co-research
using interviews; nor did I work as a waitress for research purposes, hence I
did not engage in conscious covert or overt participant observation whilst
working. Rather, as someone employed full-time as a waitress in this
establishment over a period of 18 months, I draw from my recollections the
points I discuss in this paper.
In
this endeavour, Maurizio Lazzarato’s 1996 text on Immaterial Labour provides a
starting point for analysis, whereby the writings of Michael Hardt and Toni
Negri are where I find the most explicit incorporation of affective labour into
the immaterial labour thesis. My view is that this thesis is indeed useful in
understanding the labour process affective work is part of, but I think that a
wholesale application of the theory to my example poses an important problem.
I wish to argue in my example of an
affective form of labour that whilst we can see how capital attempts to control
worker’s subjectivity, we cannot say that it this labour is “beyond measure” or
“immeasurable”[2], nor can we take for granted that this labour carries with it
such a definitive potential for an “elementary communism” internal to the
labour itself and external to capital. [3] My argument is that we must be more
cautious about what forms of labour the immaterial labour thesis might pertain
to and need to have a much more nuanced understanding of what is at stake in
particular struggles. Further to this, if we desire to understand potential
openings for a liberatory politics and the struggles that pertain to this, we
can only make sense of the affective work of a waitress in relation to other
more explicitly material forms of labour without which the service element of
the work would not be possible; crucial here is also the necessity of situating
service work within the overall production cycle of the restaurant.
Consequently, I argue that we need to ask (for my example here), what this
might mean for liberation from the capital relation beyond moments of
resistance and microconflictuality, where a collective exodus from the
domination of capital cannot be articulated in the way that Hardt and Negri
propose. In short, we must re-think not only how certain forms of affective
labour as the one I’m describing fit the assertions made in the immaterial
labour literature, but more importantly how these kinds of workers can act upon
the openings that may present themselves to them in their context.
With this argument, I am not attempting
to call into question the whole of the immaterial labour thesis with regards to
the problems I raise. Of concern to me here is that it seems there has been
insufficient attention paid to affective work in the immaterial labour
literature. Not much analysis appears beyond a definition of what affective
labour is and then a mention of affective labour as “service with a smile”,
“care labour”, “women’s (reproductive) work”, “kin work”, or the “entertainment
industry”.[4] Firstly, I think this implicit conflation of the paid and unpaid
forms of affective labour actually poses a problem for analysis, because these
different types of activity, whether understood as labour or not, which is an
important debate in itself, carry with them different political issues in
relation to exploitation and the capital relation. Not only this, but much of
the development of the actual theory of immaterial labour as developed by Hardt
and Negri pertains to other types of such labour which are more closely
associated with informatic labour mediated through communication technology, of
which affective labour becomes an implicit part by virtue of being considered
to be immaterial labour [5], as opposed to being an explicitly discussed
element with reference to the forms in which it exists today.
My analysis begins with a
contextualisation of how my waitressing work, as a form of paid work, can be
considered to be affective labour. Secondly, I will discuss the mechanisms
through which I was subjected to forms of control and how my work was measured
and its nature altered by the active constitution of it by capital. Thirdly, I
will place my affective labour in the politico-economic context of the
restaurant and the wage hierarchy, before finally concluding with some remarks
about the problems for a potential liberation from capital.
Generally,
immaterial labour is labour that “produces immaterial goods, such as a service,
a cultural product, knowledge or communication” [6], it is “labour which
produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity”. [7] Of the
three types of immaterial labour[8],
affective labour is the one that “involves the production and
manipulation of affect and requires (virtual or actual) human contact, labour
in the bodily mode (…) the labour is immaterial, even if it is corporeal and
affective, in the sense that its products are intangible, a feeling of ease,
well-being, satisfaction, excitement or passion”.[9] Importantly, it is not the
labour in itself which is immaterial, as “it involves our bodies and brains as
all labour does”, but rather its product. [10] Affective labour,
according to Hardt and Negri, produces “social networks, forms of community, biopower
[where] the instrumental action of economic production has been united with the
communicative action of human relations”. [11]
What was striking about the restaurant I
worked for was the omnipresence of a discourse of affect, imposed by management.[12]
Affect played a significant role in structuring relations amongst co-workers,
whereby kitchen porters, cleaners, bar staff and waiters were all required by
management to behave towards one another in an as well as towards guests in
line with the company’s core values. [13] Correspondingly, there was an
increased attention on enhancing the affective aspects of those forms of labour
that had always had an affective quality to them, such as service work.
As a service worker, my job was
explicitly to make the customer feel happy, contented and entertained, in a way
that they experienced “the restaurant as theatre”. [14] Indeed, “performance ha
[d] been put to work” and “the product [was] the act itself”. [15] This
centrality of affect was achieved through a restructuring of the labour process
in order to put the affective element at the heart of the server's work. In my
example, a good deal of the time that I might otherwise have spent carrying
plates, mopping up spillages, polishing cutlery or cleaning the coffee machine
was now freed up (because other workers were doing these tasks) for me to focus
on the guest.
My role entailed following a designated
sequence of service involving an enthusiastic welcoming of the guest to explain
the concept of the restaurant, providing in-depth information about the dishes
served (the composition, tastes and content in case of allergies and other
dietary requirements); and elaborating wine recommendations and cocktail
suggestions, with an emphasis on providing both in-depth knowledge about the
products as well as making them sound appealing whilst keeping the guest
entertained with light conversation; constantly anticipating their unspoken
needs which I was there to satisfy, so long as these were within the realms of
ethics and legality. [16] In order to do this, I received training in all
aspects of the food and beverages served as well as on the sequence of service
that would maximise the efficient (hence most productive) running of the
restaurant operation and thus, customer satisfaction and expenditure. A
substantive element of the investment in me on behalf of the company was in the
training of my affective skills in line with the requirements of the restaurant
and the script provided, although the
service provision also relied extensively on my social skills, on me “being
myself” for its success.
In sum, it is the waiting staff's
creation of the dining experience that restaurants like the one I worked
for look to for the increased production of value. [17] What makes this
restaurant special is understood to be predominantly the overall sensual
package it provides. This excerpt from the restaurant’s “philosophy of
hospitality” explains it.
“We
are throwing a party – it’s going to be very hip and fun, lots of people will
be coming and going. We want our guests to feel at home and cared for. We have
to make them feel that they are the only ones at the party that are important
to us. We never want our guests to feel ignored, unwelcome or rushed. You are
the key (…) you have to be the perfect host or hostess: cheery, relaxed,
unflappable. You set the tone for each table the way you greet each guest. In
short, you are graceful, sincere and refined. We will achieve this by
anticipating guest needs”. [18]
From
the moment when the guest sat down, my performance began. How to behave at the
table, what tasks had to be performed and how revenue was to be generated were
meticulously set out in a 25-point sequence of service by management, which I
was continuously assessed on through written examinations and oral spot tests.
At the same time, enough space was left for me to add my personal touches to my
table performance, because it was understood that we shouldn't all be
completely the same and that further value (and thus competitive advantage for
the company) would be added to the product by granting us the scope to let our
own personalities shape our engagement with the guest. I was supposed to
understand myself as a real person interacting with others. If we weren't too
busy, conversation (as entertainment) with guests was encouraged by management,
as the feeling of familiarity (uncomplicated, non-conventional engagement with
the guest) was paramount to the product we were selling. Much of the
management's aim was to free up as much of our time as possible to spend it at
the table, a central tenet of our training being to entertain our guests as if
they were our own personal guests in our own homes. We should “own the guest”
[19] and their experience with us personally. [20] The company pledge read:
“We believe that ‘experience rules’; we
believe we must satisfy our guest’s lust for differentiated experiences, we
will keep it continuously new and fresh, we will be guest-centric and put the
guest at the centre of everything we do, we will delight our guests, we will
fully engage all of our employees in fulfilling this promise”. [21]
This
meant pretending that guests were our personal acquaintances despite the fact
that they were not and extremely seldom ever became. Also, this exemplified a
form of management which sought to ensure that an explicit responsibility was
taken for every task and that it was followed through effectively, so as to
engender a decentralised form of management that gave us a sense of independence
and expertise, whilst avoiding costly and ineffective micro-management.
This resonates with Lazzarato's
observation that “what modern management techniques are looking for is for the
worker's soul to become part of the factory (...) the worker's personality and
subjectivity have to be made susceptible to organisation and command”. [22] On
the one hand, I was supposed to act in this “restaurant as theatre”, but on the
other hand, I was supposed to really mean what I do and say and in so doing, as
was the intention of the company, also learn transferable skills for my own
personal life, a process I unpack in more detail below.
In conclusion, what has changed today
from former articulations of service work is the extent to which the affective
element of this labour is systematically made productive for capital.
Strikingly, this focus on affect increases the higher up the ladder we climb,
in that it is prestigious, “high-class” establishments like the one I analyse
here that look to the service experience to provide them with their qualitative
differentiation, both in relation to other outlets within the same price range
attracting the same kind of customer, as well as to differentiate themselves
from more “mundane” eateries. This is their competitive edge, captured neatly
in this particular company’s self-image: “The EDGE”, the “Engaging Dynamic
Guest Experience”. [23]
Core
values, incentive schemes and participatory management are all examples of how
employees were managed in a way that encouraged their active participation in
the running of the restaurant. In the following paragraphs I will explain how
these processes functioned to encourage employees to become “active subjects”,
as Lazzarato describes,
“Work can thus be
defined as the capacity to activate and manage productive cooperation. In this
phase, workersare expected to become ‘active subjects’ in the coordination of
the various functions of production, instead of being subjected to it as simple
command. “ [24]
In
training sessions that were undergone by all staff from floor managers to
kitchen porters, role-play was used to ‘teach’ these core values. Each worker
received a plastic card the size of a credit card to carry around with them and
an accompanying pocket-size booklet, so that they could always check what the
values of the company were if they ever needed to, at work, or in their
personal lives. Subsequently, these core values, ordained from upon high
personally by the ethical guru of the company, its founder and previous owner,
[25] would be continuously invoked in the every-day running of the restaurant
in the discourses of management.
The
seven (patented) core values of this company were to be
“gracious”,
“attentive”, “authentic”, “fun”, “friendly”, “accountable”, “original” [26]
Importantly,
we were expected to actively “embody”,
not just simply adhere to these core values and were paid to be
“engaging”, “intelligent”, to “enjoy” our work, to “have fun and make money”.
[27]
Independent thought and originality
signalled not only the requirement of providing individually tailored
guest-centric, “outside of the box” service, but encompassed the demand to
think independently even if this meant challenging management decisions. This
strategy of determining an environment for the active role of workers in
decision-making processes that directly affected them (a form of “participatory
management”) was implemented through daily meetings between staff and
management, not only for management to reinforce rules and regulations but also
for staff to express their concerns and problems, discussing together with
management how a given problem could be ameliorated. Obviously, this process
existed for the sole purposes of enhancing productivity whilst seeking to foster
a subjectivity in which workers see the company’s interests as their own. [28]
This process did not have to be explicitly hierarchical for one to recognise
that this chain of command remained top-down. This is because in itself, the
socialisation process at work here tended to produce the kinds of subjects who
would fulfil the required function. In turn, this was backed up by a certain
element of force, as it was also clear that anyone who (as an individual) were
to resist the disciplining process too openly, wouldn’t last very long in the
job.
Incentive schemes existed to reinforce
the core values and the necessary subjectivity of the workers. Each week there
would be a £50 cash prize for the employee who had most eminently exhibited one
of the core values. The process by which it was decided who would win was one
in which all employees were encouraged to write to the management telling them
about how they had experienced a situation in which a colleague had exhibited a
core value in either being a good colleague to co-workers or providing a
personalised, individualised service to a customer. For example, I was
“rewarded” once for helping a guest who’d had a few too many cocktails get home
safely. At the same time, incentive schemes were not just limited to the
affective aspect of my work. There were also prizes for the server who
generated more revenue in selling the highest number of weekly or monthly
special drinks or dishes.
The production of the willing worker was
further reinforced through loyalty creation and discourses of privilege to be
working for this company. Staff were given considerable discounts when dining
in the restaurant and the management discourse was one of “yes we can”, rather
than prohibition. As employees, we were constantly reminded that we were
working for the company out of choice; that we had the option to “vote with our
feet”; we could either “accept the company and its values” [29] or go and work
somewhere else, the suggestion being that it wouldn’t be as rewarding. Feeding into
this was, as already mentioned, the fact that this restaurant was a well-known,
high-class establishment which was supposed to be (and in my experience was) a
much more interesting environment to be working in than the fast food outlet
around the corner, not least because it was financially more rewarding,
especially for the waiting staff because of the tips that we could make in
serving people who had money to spend.
The
basis for Hardt and Negri to argue that immaterial labour is today beyond
measure lies in their assertion that socially necessary labour time ceases to
be the relevant measure today. This is based on Marx’s own articulation that,
“As
soon as labour, in its direct form, has ceased to be the main source of wealth,
then labour time ceases, and must cease, to be its standard of measurement, and
thus exchange value must cease to be the measurement of use value”. [30]
But
in what sense is affective labour like the labour I performed as a waitress not
“labour in the direct form”, when we can see that I was directly labouring to
produce the affects that enhanced the guest experience? Granted, Hardt and
Negri concede that “labour does remain the fundamental source of value in
capitalist production”, [31] thus these authors cannot be critiqued for denying
the continued importance of direct labour. Their concern is that we “have to
investigate what kind of labour we are dealing with”. [32] To wit they posit
that “today, with the passage from Fordism to Post-Fordism, the increased flexibility
and mobility imposed on workers, and the decline of stable, long-term
employment typical of factory work”, the “regulatory rhythms of factory
production and its clear divisions of work time and non-work time tend to
decline in the realm of immaterial labour”. [33] In my investigation of an
example of the kind of labour we are dealing with, the above does not hold
because not only were there very clearly demarcated lines between when I was
“on duty” in the factory that is the restaurant and when I was not.
Nonetheless, it would be a too
superficial reading of the immaterial labour thesis to counter the overall
argument with this observation, although I think it remains an important fact.
Hardt and Negri state that crucially, it is in the nature of immaterial /
affective work, the fact that it “produces social life itself”, as opposed to
the “means of social life”, that we find its liberatory, and its “excessive”
qualities with respect to the “value that capital can extract from it”[34];
because ultimately, it holds its “foundation in the common”[35]. This is the
reason why it is designated as “immeasurable”, because this feature leads the
labour to be unquantifiable in separate units of time and supposedly because
exchange value seizes to be the measurement of use value.
Of course any type of affective work by
definition is social in nature, whereby the worker produces “forms of
community” [36] of sorts which rely heavily on the worker's interpersonal
skills that they learned in common with other people throughout their working
and non-working lives. The fact that I was nice to my guests, engaged with them
in conversation and read their every desire from their body language,
personalities and conversations, did not mean that we were together creating a
common “internal to labour” [37] and “external to capital” [38]. Firstly,
the form of community that was created
between the guest and myself was an unequal one in which I was not simply
under command to relate to other people in a way that I would anyway whether
the capital relation existed or not, but one in which precisely because of the
capital relation, I had to behave towards my guests in a particular way, namely
one which involved me pandering to their needs and desires so that the company
could make its profit. Hence, the active involvement of capital fundamentally
changed the nature of my relationship with the people who were my guests.
Whereas the potential for the kinds of life activity that my labour as a
waitress consisted of existed prior to the capital relation I was bound up
in, it was capital that gave it its
particular form in the relations established in the restaurant. The exaggerated
treatment of the guests, this exaggeration of what any normal relationship
would be like, and not least the fact that the relationship was not just about
creating social forms of life with them, but in serving them, often engaging in
mild forms of prostitution to do so, within a complex power relation that
cannot be separated from the capital relations with which it exists, [39] set
the measure for this kind of labour. This form of labour was not just
alienating because it was performed under command [40] or because it became
automated and mechanical as opposed to spontaneous and natural. Importantly, the
social relations created were completely altered by the active presence and
active intervention of capital. Further to this, the use value of my affective
labour was constantly “objectively” established through specific processes of
measurement that served to quantify its corresponding exchange value.
Mystery
Dining
“Mystery
dining” is a common practice in the service industry. [41] Restaurants employ
mystery dining firms to assess how well the dining experience lives up to the
standards they set for themselves, which are continuously assessed and improved
upon. Neither floor managers nor workers know they are being visited by a
mystery diner, as obviously this would defeat the purpose of the objective. In
the case of the restaurant I worked at, this happened on a monthly basis.
As a waitress, I was assessed by mystery
diners as to how well I performed the sequence of service in the minutest of
detail. [42] The mystery diner also performed the corresponding checks on the
person in the call centre receiving the original table booking and the
performance of the receptionists and floor managers, as well as assessing that
of the kitchen and bar staff (through the evaluation of the food and beverages)
during the same visit, i.e. the whole experience was evaluated.
This information was then collated in an
overall report and sent to the company. The written report correlated elapsed
time and key moments in the sequence of service with the overall fulfilment of
the service requirements, measured in percent. In a further correlation, the
scores for “fulfilment” by department (reservations, kitchen, management etc)
and fulfilment by key indicators (service, hospitality, attention to detail,
revenue generation, food, atmosphere) were compared with former reports at the
same restaurant as well as fulfilment percentage averages of other restaurants
owned by the same company, shown in bar charts and correlation matrices with
the respective percentage figures. Good results were shared with the staff at
briefings and used to promote enthusiasm amongst workers. The assessed waiter
was also rewarded with an invitation to dine at the restaurant, an incentive
not to get bad results. Extra training would be provided for those performing
badly; although this seldom occurred.
Due to the fact that these standards were associated with generating
more revenue and earning more tips through providing excellent service, this
acted as the most effective incentive to fulfil the requirements (and
management wouldn’t bother you).
In the example of the mystery diner we
can see that in order to increase productivity, workers were measured in
relation to an ideal standard of what they should be doing and how they should
be behaving. As De Angelis argues, ‘a measure is always a discursive device
that acts as a point of reference, a benchmark, a typical norm, a standard (…)
immanent measure of value is constituted by the ongoing working of capitalist
disciplinary processes passing through markets’. [43]Thus, whilst we might
believe that we cannot place a value on affect in any abstract way, we can see
that activities are not beyond measure when the purpose of the measurement
activity described is to place an objective value on the affective labour of
the worker, to measure and through this determine the value produced. This
practice of mystery dining is not simply a mechanism of control; it has a
disciplining function, it actually serves to create a use-value for the
customer out of the affective work done by the waitress and other staff, and
this creation, this output, is subjected to the calculating eye of capital and
its measure, interested in the exchange value that can potentially be generated
for the company and the correspondent profit rate; the mystery diner, in other
words, serves the purpose of setting standards as to what, and how much can be
demanded of workers. To a certain extent, this process is influenced by the
intervention of the consumer, although it is not “defined” by them, as
Lazzarato argues for example [44]. This is because standards are set by the
company which is forever seeking to create new human desires in order to make a
profit and for this, as the example of the mystery diner shows, it needs to be
able to “objectively” [45] measure the value that could be produced through
this creation of desires and their subsequent fulfilment by the waiting staff.
Whereas there an element of interplay between the innovative input of workers
and the imposition of standards by capital, hence the reliance on so-called
participatory forms of management, this process is much more complex, and
capital’s interests, as embodied by the management of the restaurant, play a
much more dominant role in shaping how worker’s input is shaped and made
productive for capital, than is acknowledged
by Hardt and Negri when they celebrate the power of the communicative and
innovative activities of immaterial workers. A second example of measurement
practices is found in the wage structure, characterised by service charge and
gratuity.
Wage
relations
Service
charge is a percentage, usually between 10 and 15% of the sum total of the
products consumed added to the guest's bill. This is a discretionary charge,
i.e. the guest can opt out of paying it if they feel that the service was not
up to the standard they expected. This service charge, collected by the company
when diners pay their bill, is divided up amongst the workers to constitute a
wage per shift in addition to a basic shift pay (with different percentages of
it going to workers who perform different tasks, e.g. the waitress gets a
higher percentage than the receptionist and the manager gets a higher
percentage than the waitress). What is interesting about this service charge is
that it is a direct outsourcing of labour cost to the customer, and thus an
indirect form of control that the management exercises over the staff, as well
as a measuring device which not only forces the waiter to conform to the
standards in order to get paid, but also measures the performance of the
restaurant in relation to other restaurants in the same price category, as it
is based on this experience of other restaurants dine at that the guest will
measure whether the service is worthy of the service charge or not.
Gratuity or tips are monetary “gifts”
made directly to the waiting staff as an incentive or “thank you” for good
service. Whilst empirical research has shown that there is little statistical
relation between customers actually tipping more due to good service and vice
versa [46], it is the reward aspect of tipping that management use as a motivation.
This practice also further complexifies the relationship between service staff
and guest, because it is a wage relation set up directly between the guest and
the server, or to put it in different terms, it is collusion between employer
and customer, where, similar to the service charge, the employer seeks an
indirect control over the worker’s performance through asking the customer to
evaluate how well the duties are performed. [47] Here, the server is being
directly measured and disciplined into performing her role of producing affect;
the better she does, the more money she will make.
However, the dining experience the
customer is valuing by agreeing to pay service charge and leave a tip, does not
depend solely on the affective work of the waitress. This affective labour is
part of the end product of a whole array of material labour without which the
waitress would not be able to provide her services. A central importance of
tips is that they serve as a mechanism of keeping the wages of the waiting
staff down whilst retaining the kind of staff that are used to being able to
demand a higher income than the minimum wage. This example shows how capital
continuously seeks to externalise labour costs; [48] by outsourcing the
variable cost of labour to the customer through the service charge and through
the active endorsement of a tipping culture, management can keep actual wages
to a minimum. Moreover, from my personal experience I can confirm that service
staff are usually more than happy to consent to this, because they know they
can always earn a great deal more by agreeing to this arrangement than if they
were to only receive a wage from the company. Even if wages were a little
higher to compensate for the absence of tips or service charge, I am pretty
sure they would never be as high as the money we are able to make with tips.
[49]
At the same time, a hierarchy between
workers exists in that it is only the waiting staff that get the tip in
establishments as this one where tips are not divided up between all workers.
For example, if the kitchen staff perform badly, they risk reprehension, if the
waiting staff mess up, they ‘only’ risk losing their tip, which is one reason
why we need to look at the overall political economy of the restaurant.
In
my introduction I argued that the affective worker cannot be seen out of
context of the labour process that he or she is part of. In the restaurant that
I’m discussing here, the affective work of the waitress could not be done
without the labour of the person who cleans the uniforms and all the linen, the
chef, the kitchen porter, the drinks dispense, or for that matter, any of the
material labour involved with creating the interior of the restaurant (the
tables, chairs, plates, glasses, sound system etc). All of the labour process
is subject to specific measuring processes, the rationale of which is the
maximisation of profit for the restaurant and the correspondent minimisation of
cost. For this reason, it seems to me that we cannot so quickly do away with
the idea that the process creating socially necessary labour time constitutes
the exchange value (even of immaterial labour) and that this value is a site of
struggle. [50] Whilst there are different aspects to the way that when we look
at the aggregate worker, socially necessary labour time remains a vital measure
of all of the manual and immaterial labour that goes into producing the product
of the dining experience with all its components. As Marx himself states,
“If we consider the
aggregate worker, i.e. if we take all the members comprising the workshop [in
this case the restaurant] together, then we see that their combined activity
results materially in an aggregate product which is at the same time a quantity
of goods. And here it is quite immaterial whether the job of a particular
worker, who is merely a limb of this aggregate worker, is at a greater or
smaller distance from the actual manual worker”. [51]
When
Hardt and Negri do not dispute this, they use this argument of Marx’s to state
that it provides the grounds to understanding the potential of the commons, if
we understand how the practices of immaterial labour are inherently
co-operative; [52] this may be true at specific times and in specific instances.
But, the form of labour that I was a constituent part of is predicated upon
capital creating the conditions for the co-operation. Without capital’s active
intervention, this form of co-operation would not exist in the way that it is
performed within the confines of the restaurant. Moreover, it is capital that
provides all of the means necessary for the workers to produce in this
way.
In the relations between staff, capital
set up measures between workers and established a wage hierarchy which sought
to impose capital as the structural force upon all relations. There may have
been a certain degree of “general
intellect” [53] guiding the production process of the dining experience,
because we used our interpersonal skills to assess the requirements of the
moment and worked co-operatively using our “common sense” and acquired skills
to make the operation happen. Yet, crucially, there remained a clear division
of labour, clear assignments and a clear command structure as opposed to a
networked decentralised form of activity that are understood as a predominant
feature of immaterial forms of labour. [54] Not least, once we view the
aggregate labour of the restaurant, we see that socially necessary labour time
remains the basic measure of value, precisely because put in a rather straightforward way, management still seeks to
generate the maximum amount of profit whilst paying staff as little as they
have to achieve this goal: this is inherent to the logic of the undertaking.
Thus, it seems to me somewhat contradictory
that Hardt and Negri do not dispute Marx’s assertion as cited above but then
make the claim that socially necessary labour time is no longer a valid form of
measure, which we can see is still valid when we situate the affective worker
within the labour process of the restaurant with regard to the type of labour
performed, as well as in terms of the wage hierarchy and sociological make-up
of the workers who occupy different positions within the labour process. For
example, the fact that, when one takes both service charge and gratuity into
consideration, waiters are paid a lot more than kitchen, bar or cleaning staff
(and actually more than junior managers as well), shows that we need to put
affective labour into the context of material and “immiserated labour”. [55]
Moreover, most visible “front of house” staff were middle-class, well-educated
and from countries of the so-called “Global North” with secure permanent
contracts, who were often only doing service work as a stepping stone to
becoming an academic, an artist, a media worker or a lawyer. The flipside of
this was the invisible more precarious migrant labour at the “back of house”
(with the exception of qualified chefs).
In this paper, my
intention has been to apply the immaterial labour model to a specific example
of affective labour to assess how the arguments, in particular of Hardt and
Negri, conform to the realities of such work. Whilst I acknowledge the
usefulness of the concepts of immaterial and affective labour as developed in
the literature, the specific problem I address here is that affective labour
cannot be said to be “beyond measure”, nor is it directly social or indicative
of an “elementary communism”, if we understand how capital actively changes the
nature of this work in its pursuit of profit. Thus, for the type of labour I
analyse here, we must rethink the role that affective labour can play in the
construction of a common as a form of exodus from capital and crucially, how we
can achieve this endeavour. I note that these authors do not intend to posit
the common of immaterial labour as a kind of paradise exempt from capitalist
exploitation [57], but in my reading of their work, it is apparent that their
thesis, despite such caveats, elicits certain problems when we try to apply the
model to a reality of affective labour, as I hope to have shown. But what does
this mean for a liberatory politics?
Apart from individual moments of
microconflictuality that exist in the everyday life of any working environment
(for example in the restaurant staff not following company rules in wearing
their uniform properly or a chef cooking some food for a colleague when they
not supposed to), there was one particular collective moment of resistance that
I experienced. This happened if a member of staff came to dine in the
restaurant. In such a case, all the staff including the floor managers would
work together to ensure they had a really fun time and would lavishly shower
them with (almost) free food and drink. This kind of reclaiming of the
restaurant for workers to share with each other was a moment of commons,
perhaps a moment of resistance. But it is hardly an articulation of other
possible worlds beyond capital because it happens within the clear limitations
and perhaps even serves to placate any antagonisms that arise at work. And so,
in offering my insight of how capital functions to organise the labour process
of the restaurant as opposed to merely extracting value from the immaterial
labour performed, I’m equally posing the question of how we articulate what
“exodus” can mean for particular forms of affective labour, understood as
situated within the overall production cycle it is a constitutive part of where
the struggle over measure remains central.
NOTES
I am very much
indebted to Ben Trott, Rodrigo Nunes and Massimo De Angelis for their comments
on earlier drafts of this paper. All mistakes remain my own.
2. (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p. 294 and Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 145).
3. (Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 147).
4. (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p.292 and Hardt and Negri, 2005; p.110).
5. Dyer-Witheford notes, “although the concept of immateriality [has
been enlarged by Hardt and Negri] to embrace ‘affective’ work […], it’s
defining features continue to be attributes of the ‘cyborg’ worker”
(Dyer-Witheford, 2005; p. 157). Crucially, Dyer-Witheford recognises a
“theoretical slight of hand” in that, “In Empire, there is a continuing
affirmation of the immaterial labour thesis, ostensibly expanding the
designation to very broad swathe of workers, yet still deriving its primary
models from those in close proximity to computer and communication
technologies” (Dyer-Witheford, 2005; p. 154). Even with the publication of Multitude,
where some aspects of immaterial labour are restated, I would argue this
problem still persists.
6. (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p. 291).
7. (Lazzarato,
1996)
8. The first type denotes labour “involved in an industrial production that
has been informationalised and has incorporated communication technology in a
way that transforms the production process itself”, the second type is “the
immaterial labour of analytical and symbolic tasks which itself breaks down
into creative and intelligent manipulation on the one hand and routine symbolic
tasks on the other” (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p. 292).
9. (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p. 292).
10. (Hardt and Negri, 2005, p. 109).
11. (Hardt and Negri, 2000; p. 293).
12. When I refer to “management” in this paper, I am aware of the fact
that many workers who occupy management positions are equally wage labourers,
albeit with higher incomes and more freedom the higher up the management
hierarchy one moves. In this paper, I do not wish to engage in the important
discussion about class composition and management hierarchies and the complex
antagonisms that pertain to this discussion (see for example Hindess, 1987) as
I think it goes beyond the scope of analysis at hand; thus, I use “management”
as a shorthand for the structure which acts on behalf of and in the interest of
capital and the owners of the restaurant.
13. I shall explain the core values in detail as this paper unfolds.
14. (Restaurant’s “philosophy of hospitality”, undisclosed source).
15. (Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 200).
16. This is specifically
stated in this way in the restaurant training manual, undisclosed source.
17. see also Hochschild's work on emotional labour in the airline industry,
1983.
18. (Restaurant training manual, undisclosed source).
19. (Hotel training
manual, undisclosed source). See footnote [25] for a brief clarification on the
difference between hotel and restaurant
20. See also Crang (1994)
for a different study that registers the same phenomenon.
21. (Restaurant training manual, undisclosed source).
22. see Lazzarato, 1996
23. (Hotel training manual, undisclosed source).
24.
“Active subjectivity” is employed here as it is understood by Lazzarato (1996)
25. The
restaurant was part of a high-class hotel chain, however the two companies were
separate entities, nevertheless working together on a variety of aspects,
including personnel management
26. ( restaurant training manual, undisclosed source).
27.
ibid.
28. (Lazzarato, 1996)
29. (as stated by
management in a training session)
30. (Marx, 2005; p. p. 415).
31. Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 145.
32. ibid.
33. ibid.
34. I
think that an important discussion to be had beyond the limitis of this paper
is the discussion around “Living Labour” as that which capital can never
capture completley. I agree with Hardt and Negri that capital can never capture
the whole of human existence; but to refer to “the
fundamental human faculty – the ability to engage the world actively and create
social life” (Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 146) as a form of labour I think
elicits problems. In my view, perhaps “living labour” could be better
understood as “life activity” ( David Harvie, personal conversation). This is
because referring to all life activities as “labour”, whether “living” or
otherwise, seems to me to reinforce the exploitation of our every action by
capital. Thus, rather than refusing to allow all human interactions to become
subsumed under capital, both actually and discursively, we endorse denominating
them as “labour”, as that activity which is organised through the capital
relation, thereby entering into the discussion on capital’s terms. This goes to
the heart of the meaning of “labour”, and posits the question of whether
“labour” is to be understood as exclusively being about waged labour and the
organisational process of capitalism that creates it as such. This is something
both Marxist feminist critiques with regard so-called unproductive labour and
the reproductive labour of women’s domestic work address (see for example James
and Dalla Costa, 1972), as well as being an issue that lies at the very core of
the premises by which Hardt and Negri speak of real subsumption under capital.
This is a serious issue within the debate at hand but warrants a more in-depth
assessment than I can do justice to here.
35. Hardt and Negri, 2005, pp. 145-7.
36. Hardt and
Negri, 2000; p. 293.
37. Hardt and
Negri, 2005 ; p. 147
38. ibid
39. See also
Ogbonna and Harris 2002.
40. Hardt and
Negri, 2005; p. 111.
41. See for example, www.mysterydining.co.uk.
42. It was recorded what time the customer sat down at the table, what
time I first approached the table, what time I took the order, how much time
elapsed until the drinks arrived, repeating this for each of my moves through
the whole meal until I presented the check at the end (we had two hours max. to
complete each dining experience). What was being measured was my efficiency and
time keeping, coupled with how well I completed the desired tasks and generated
the maximum amount of revenue.
43. De Angelis, forthcoming.
44. See Lazzarato, 1996.
45. “objective” here has to be understood not in epistemological or
metaphysical terms, but in terms of the “objectivity” of the measurement of
value that the mystery dining process serves to place on the work of the
employees. If we discard this notion because we understand that we cannot place
any abstract value on human activity, then we undermine our analysis of the
specific types of exploitation that pertain to this process; thus here, I wish
to hold on to the term “objective” as understood within the parametres of the
measurement process that is taking place.
46. Videbeck (2004) and Lynn (2001).
47. Ogbonna and
Harris, 2002; p. 744.
48. see also, Wright, 2005; p. 39.
49. see for
example interviews conducted with waiting staff by Ogbonna and Harris, 2002.
50. (See also, Cleaver 1979; De Angelis 2006).
51. Marx cited in Cleaver, 2000; p. 101.
52. Hardt and
Negri, 2005; pp. 144-5.
53. A concept taken from Marx, to mean ‘the general productive forces of the
social brain’ (Marx cited in Dyer-Witheford, 2005; p. 141).
54. Hardt and
Negri, 2005; p. 142.
55. See Dyer-Witheford, 2005; p. 15
56. Hardt and Negri, 2005; p. 111.
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CV:
Emma Dowling is a research student at Birkbeck College, University of
London. Previously, she completed a BA (International Relations) and MSc
(Global Ethics) at the University of Birmingham, where she subsequently worked
for the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics. She is currently co-editing a
special edition of the journal Ephemera exploring the concepts of
Affective and Immaterial Labour.
E-mail: [email protected]