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Townsend 2003 Leisure at Work Who Can Resist An Investigation Into Workplace Resistance by Leisure Service Employees
Townsend 2003 Leisure at Work Who Can Resist An Investigation Into Workplace Resistance by Leisure Service Employees
T his article compares and contrasts the findings of two case studies examining the
prevalence and manifestations of resistance within the leisure industry. This study
was based on workplace experience over a number of years and supported by thirty-six
semi-structured interviews with employees at all levels of the two organisations studied.
The author predicted that there would be a number of factors contributing to the
employees resisting managerial controls. It was expected that the size of the organisation
would, in part, determine managerial style. Managerial style would, in turn, influence
employee perceptions of what were appropriate behaviours while in the workplace.
However, the employment history and expectations of key managerial staff prove to be
interesting complications in one case. It was found that in one organisation where
middle-management culture was one of resistance to upper-managerial approaches,
so-called deviant behaviours became more covert and damaging.
INTRODUCTION
The field of industrial relations boasts a rich history of literature examining the
day-to-day interactions between employees and employers at the workplace level.
Following World War II industrial sociologists undertook a number of valuable
workplace studies on employee resistance to managerial controls in the work-
place (see for examples: Roy 1952; Roy 1954; Lupton 1963; Blauner 1964;
Cunnison 1966). However, such first-hand studies of the employment relation-
ship have slipped from vogue. In the 1970s and 1980s Labour Process scholars,
such as Braverman (1974) and Friedman (1977), offered a rich historical inter-
pretation of workplace management behaviour strategies. However, the school
has largely abandoned the practice of placing the worker at the centre of the
analysis (Thompson & Ackroyd 1995).
This study returns to the traditions of the industrial sociologists and focuses
on the resistance to managerial controls and the informal behaviours of
employees at work. Firstly, this paper will examine theoretical perspectives
with regard to the control/resistance/cooperation framework. Two case study
organisations of differing sizes operating within a leisure industry in Australia
* PhD Candidate, School of Industrial Relations, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane,
Queensland 4111. Email: K.Townsend@griffith.edu.au The author would like to acknowledge the
assistance of Associate Professor Bob Russell and Dr Cameron Allan in developing this paper.
THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2003, 442–456
LEISURE AT WORK, WHO CAN RESIST? 443
will be outlined before this paper considers the manner in which resistance and
workplace behaviours are manifested in each organisation. Finally, this paper
will analyse the motivations behind the behaviours within a control/resistance/
cooperation framework.
THEORETICALLY RESISTANCE?
Industrial relations scholars within Australia have traditionally focused upon
structural issues such as national labour market policy, trade unions and
employer associations, and the role of the law. When conflict is considered (in
the institutional realm) research is largely concerned with the way conflict is
regulated (Gardner & Palmer 1998). Hence, studies that place the worker at
the centre of analysis are largely absent from Australian industry studies and
the potential for studying resistance is marginalised.
The labour process framework of control/resistance/cooperation gathered
renewed vigour in scholarly debates following the publication of Braverman’s
Labour and Monopoly Capital (1974). Almost thirty years later, debate continues
as to the veracity of Braverman’s work. Certainly, it is widely agreed that labour
process theory does not fully explain the complex dynamics that occur between
actors in the workplace (Willmott 1993; Thompson & Ackroyd 1995; Sewell 1998;
Ackroyd & Thompson 1999). A question remains over the degree to which
employees are willing (and perhaps able) to resist managerial controls in the
workplace (see for examples: Sewell & Wilkinson 1992; Webster & Robins
1993; Knights & McCabe 1998; Sewell 1998; Findlay et al. 2000; Knights &
McCabe 2000; Callaghan & Thompson 2001; Ezzamel et al. 2001)
Managerially focused literature demonstrates a distinct tendency to view
workplace behaviours with rose coloured glasses. Where behaviours do not fit
the mould of being both conformist and positive, they are viewed as deviant. The
expectation is that these behaviours can be, and should be, rectified (Ackroyd &
Thompson 1999). However, Ackroyd and Thompson argue that there is much
more to employee behaviours than labour process theory and organisational
behaviour analyses can explain, a view supported by this research.
The focus of post-World War II industrial sociology was the low-skilled and
semi-skilled, blue-collar worker of mass production manufacturing workshops.
This work largely focused on employees and their experiences from the position
of the employee, and provided a rich tapestry of behaviours that demonstrated
employees resisting managerial controls (see for example: Roy 1952,1954; Lupton
1963; Blauner 1964; Cunnison 1966). Burawoy (1979) successfully returned to
this tradition, while situating his study within a labour process framework.
Burawoy detailed employees actively cooperating to resist managerial controls
and maintain group norms and accepted behaviours. Employees supported
each other to redress the power imbalance in the employment relationship and
perhaps surprisingly there was little mention of union involvement. Employees
used the strength of shopfloor cohesion to resist managerial controls and reduce
the subjective alienation of industry.
Interestingly, Burawoy recognised that not all work practices that varied from
the formal structured rules (henceforth considered informal work practices) would
444 THE JOURNAL OF I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S December 2003
THE ORGANISATIONS
The organisations considered in this study operate within the aquatic leisure
industry in Australia. The first, Small Pools, was a stand-alone facility. That is,
unlike some ‘leisure centres’, the aquatic centre was the only source of revenue.
The Small Pools business held four consecutive five-year leases from the
municipal council. This tender and leasing arrangement contributed to a degree
of uncertainty within the organisation. The owner of Small Pools could not be
certain of retaining the lease beyond any five-year period. Indeed, in 1996 when
Small Pools’ lease was not renewed, the nine staff members at the time became
unemployed. The Small Pools organisation was a simple one in terms of its
workforce, its clientele and its product. Final responsibilities fell to the on-site
employer/manager of the organisation. All full-time and casual staff were trained
to liaise with the municipal council and corporate associates (such as swimming
and other social clubs, school groups and suppliers of kiosk requirements or
pool chemicals) to a basic level. For example, when the council was required
to perform maintenance, or when chemicals and stock were required, even
the most junior of staff was capable, when trained, of ordering, accepting and
LEISURE AT WORK, WHO CAN RESIST? 445
coordinating the process. The employer considered training the staff to execute
the majority of the differing aspects of the business to be necessary. However,
experienced staff had a tendency to quit as the employer explains:
You’d tend to employ young people that you know and trust and they work with
you through high school in the kiosk and then they do some extra lifeguarding when
they leave school and then they move on with their life and want more hours. If they
are really interested in the industry they want to get their own pool. So you really
train your staff to leave you and the better they are the more chance you have of
losing them. There’s a limited number of people that are good and are willing to
work for shitty pay (Interview, Employer, January 2000).
with the general employees than the Directors. The ‘unmanned factory’ seemed
to be a concept quite attractive to the board of White Tower. The Board of
Directors level most certainly approached all employees (including their
management team) in a manner described by Gouldner as ‘handling the enemy
within’ (1954, p. 166).
Indicated throughout all of the interviews of White Tower employees is an
overwhelming frustration with many aspects of the organisation. Rating high
among these frustrations is the observation that the organisation’s structure was
far too convoluted. The Board of ‘Dictators’, as the managerial staff referred to
it, consisted of seven members of the one family. Regularly, decisions would
be made at a managerial level, only to be overturned at the board level. When
decisions would be reached at the board level, individual board members would
voice alternate strategies away from board meetings. As a result, managerial staff
found themselves in the position of weighing up the balance of power at the board
level before determining their actions. Every decision seemed to be driven by
manipulation and a struggle for control born at a family level rather than at an
organisational level.
And later, when asked specifically about times when employees could be
performing work but would not, John explained it this way:
. . . we’d get our stuff done, maybe not as quickly and efficiently as we could if we
didn’t talk to anyone, but that’s what was so good about the job, just really friendly
and relaxed. We kind of offset the success of the business a little for having an
enjoyable place to work. [The manager] didn’t mind, he wanted to enjoy working
as well . . . yeah, it was all pretty laid back (Interview, John, February 2000).
Employees recognised that there was an acceptable time for, and level of
restricting effort within the organisation. Informal group norms that were
beneficial to employers as well as employees contrast with findings in Roy’s
LEISURE AT WORK, WHO CAN RESIST? 447
(1952, 1954) research that found group norms sought were for the benefit of
the employees and not of the organisation. It is apparent that Small Pools’
employees used group norms for the realisation of different goals. That is, group
norms were not placing an upper limit on effort as with Roy’s groups, but
placing a lower limit on effort restrictions. Peter, a full-time employee explained
the treatment of those not adhering to group norms in terms of an accepted level
of effort restriction:
We did have one girl who’d just park her arse on the counter and we really hated
people sitting on the counter, but she’d just sit there and you’d say ‘how ‘bout you
do such ‘n’ such’ and she’d be like, just not interested. She just wanted to sit around
and do nothing and that pissed other people off. She wasn’t made feel very welcome,
nobody would talk to her and we’d give her shitty jobs . . . so she didn’t hang around
that long (Interview, Peter, February 2000).
Staff members quickly learnt the acceptable group norms when it came to effort
restriction. There was a realisation that some days were going to be extremely
busy and the staff would need to be prepared for an increased workload, and
other days would be ‘laid back’ days where withholding effort was acceptable.
Individuals who failed to adhere to the informal group norms were ostracised
from the group, limiting their future in the organisation. The employees had a
degree of semi-autonomous control and with that control they could withhold
effort that might have led to surplus value, but also maintain a high level of
output at other times, clearly more complicated than simple soldiering as
resistance.
As stated by one informant, systematic underworking may have adversely
affected Small Pools’ profitability. Yet the employer sanctioned this behaviour
that appeared to directly and negatively affected profitability. Hence, when the
employer explicitly sanctions a level of ‘soldiering’, it is difficult, if not impos-
sible, to reconcile these behaviours within the labour process resistance frame-
work. When considered in totality with other informal work practices, the adverse
effect of effort restriction may be counterbalanced with a higher level of staff
morale, reduced organisational turnover, almost no absenteeism, and reduced
levels of pilfering.
Workers at White Tower were certainly aware of expectations to work hard,
even performing multiple duties at once.
When you’re lifeguarding there is always the expectation that you’re also keeping
the grounds clean. It can be a dilemma even for experienced lifeguards—at what
point is the pool safe enough to do some cleaning or whatever? Interview, Scotty,
July 2000.
They [the directors] all wanted to be the ones to control it and would undermine
the managers . . . for a while the managers would try to do their jobs but eventually
would give up . . . [and] didn’t care when jobs got done as long as they didn’t get in
the shit over things. The staff didn’t care if things got done just as long as no-one
drowned on their shift.’
There is a general opinion that managers are high performers and highly com-
mitted individuals who are bound together to achieve the corporate mission and
objectives of the organisation in which they are employed, driven by a sense of
ambition, teamwork, knowledge and flexibility (Noon & Blyton 1997; Biggs &
Horgan 1999). As part of their responsibilities, it is expected that managers are
empowered to adapt to the organisation’s needs; will always ‘be on call’ if the
need arises, and will work hours in a ‘whatever it takes’ style that meets the needs
of the business. This picture portrays middle managers as very hard-working and
dedicated to the goals of the organisation. However, Smith (1990) recognises that
this is not always the case for managers and certainly was not the case with the
managers at White Tower Leisure.
Smith details and questions organisational and class paradigms that see
managers simply as an extension of the capitalist without due recognition of
the divergences between (middle) management who manage the day-to-day
functions at the workplace and the upper levels of management who are
responsible for ‘strategies of accumulation’ and the measures for achieving
them (Burawoy, cited by Smith 1990).
In the context of the hostile White Tower environment, management staff
positioned themselves with other employees in their adversarial relationship with
the employers. All employees regardless of their position within the hierarchy
spoke of the employers in terms of ‘us and them’. The employees at White Tower
present a workforce with a surface level of solidarity based on a significant
dislike of their employers. For these employees, resisting organisational
expectations of required work effort was not simply redressing a perceived
wage/effort imbalance but a means of regathering some measure of personal
control they felt had been undermined. The general feeling can be summed up
with the notion that all employees throughout the organisation perceived that
the board felt the managers’ efforts were perpetually inadequate; the level of
respect proffered to employees was inadequate; the demands placed upon
employees were seen to be unreasonable. It was as a result of these factors that,
whenever possible, workers determined their own level of effort, rarely at a level
that was expected by the Board. Clearly, this is in stark comparison to the
reasons for effort restriction at Small Pools.
study. Steve encouraged it; he’d say ‘go on, bring your books, you’re not going to
be doing anything else’. You couldn’t always do it though—most of the time you
just wouldn’t even bother trying (Interview, James, January 2000).
Many times the facility managers would meet at Central Tower before travelling
to their monthly commitment with the municipal council. After the meeting, the
450 THE JOURNAL OF I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S December 2003
managers would have a two or three hour lunch. Why? Because none of
them really wanted to go back to work and they could justify their actions quite
readily. If questioned they could describe the lunch as a management meeting.
Needless to say, after the initial complaints about the latest initiatives from the
board of dictators, discussions would not relate to anything relevant to the White
Tower organisation. Managers removing themselves from their designated work
area was indeed an act of resistance to employer control.
Within this organisation managers have little training and are offered little
assistance to engage in formal managerial training. Employees were chosen to
be managers for their experience within the industry, but few, if any were chosen
with proven managerial experience. As a result of this, many staff members placed
in managerial positions felt intimidated by the expectations placed upon them
and the bullish behaviour of the organisation’s directors.
It really makes you bitter though, you know, to be put in this position of respon-
sibility but not be given any positive responsibility or encouragement. I might as
well have been scrubbing the shithouses for all the respect I was given. And when
you’re treated so poorly I think it’s just human nature to want to protect yourself. I
guess the only way a lot of these managers knew how to protect themselves was to
adopt sort of guerrilla tactics. You know, screw them before they screw you (Interview,
Julie, May 2000).
As has been suggested, managers at White Tower are likely to resist organisational
controls and engage in informal work practices at a higher level. They have greater
scope and more opportunities to misuse time, effort and goods and, it is argued
by former employees, more reason to do so. The following quotes provide
examples of known and alleged activities undertaken by managers in this
organisation.
The company wouldn’t buy tools we needed and I was tired of borrowing my father’s
electric drill to work at the pool so over a few days I skimmed the till and bought
one. It was for the company and stayed at the pool so I thought it was justified at
the time. When I quit I was so pissed off that I figured that they didn’t know they
had the thing and I figured I might as well keep it myself. A bit of a severance
452 THE JOURNAL OF I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S December 2003
payment if you like. The same thing happened with the whipper snipper, I’ve got
it at home now, too (Interview, Bobbie, June 2000).
On one occasion there was a break-in and a ride-on mower, a whipper snipper
and an industrial sized pool vacuum was stolen. The safe was also opened and
the day’s takings totalling thousands of dollars was stolen. Julie offered the
following explanation:
I was sure it was an inside job and I spoke to one of the other managers and he agreed
with me . . . we kind of thought we knew who was most likely to have done it and
we thought it was probably a bit of pay-back for the way this guy was being treated.
We didn’t tell anyone though . . . (Interview, Julie, May 2000).
Douglas tells of the minimal benefits of selling chlorine and other pool
chemicals to mates. He also details a more structured group system utilised
by some staff members to regularly fiddle the till:
We’d have a couple of guys that’d work the same shift working together skimming
the till. You might get fifty or a hundred dollars a day. That adds up . . . especially
over a year (Interview, Douglas, July 2000).
As intimated prior to these quotes, managers often felt quite aggrieved in regard
to three different things: the volume of work placed on them; the lack of respect
from their employers; and the pressure to place what the managers considered
unrealistic expectations upon lower level staff. As a result, the reappropriation
of goods was manifestly obvious, even barefaced in comparison to the insignificant
levels at Small Pools.
Small Pools employees have a smaller scope in that the organisation is much
smaller. They also have much less opportunity, as the employer is present for
most hours of the day. White Tower employees are faced with greater scope in
terms of the size of the organisation. With a much smaller level of direct man-
agerial supervision, lower level employees have a greater degree of opportunity.
Staff members higher in the organisational hierarchy have both the scope and a
greater level of opportunity due to the additional freedom in their position.
This increased scope and opportunity, coupled with dissatisfaction with their
employers, results in a high level of reappropriation of goods at the upper ech-
elons of the organisation with the levels tapering off as scope and opportunity
decreases.
Within the smaller organisation, the staff worked on a daily basis with
their employer. Intimate relationships were formed and friendships flourished.
Workers were institutionalised into an established structure of work practices that
could be viewed as resistance in another organisation. The guidelines offered by
the employer and more experienced staff were generally accepted by employees.
Any resistance was often perceived to be directly against a friend rather than a
faceless organisation.
Small Pools employees enjoy the fact that their employment is not one
with a traditional employer/employee relationship with strict demarcations
and controls. The employer is in a position to use direct control measures
(Edwards 1979) to maintain a level of discipline within the workforce. However,
the control measures are relaxed and relationships are friendly rather than
antagonistic. Employees in this organisation offer their commitment to their
employer as an individual person, largely removed from any organisational
structure.
By contrast, many White Tower Leisure staff rarely, if ever, meet their
employers. This in itself may not seem significant, but a majority of senior
employees arrived at this organisation from an employment relationship similar
to that of Small Pools. Hence, their expectations were somewhat different to
the reality of working at White Tower. The employees arrived with industry
experience and knowledge along with expectations of an appropriate level of
informal work practices. When these practices were maintained at White Tower,
conflict arose between the employers and the employees. Each party has signifi-
cantly differing expectations of the role the other would play in the organisation.
The employers are perceived to be disrespectful to their employees, including
their managerial staff, and as a result employees hold no emotional attachment
to the organisation or the people for whom they work. As much as the employers
attempt to promote a ‘team’ environment, the employees see this as a manipu-
lative façade and remain highly individualistic in their approach to work.
Certainly much of the discussion provided relates to the perception held by
the staff members involved in informal work practices. Consistent throughout
the White Tower interviews was the notion of the employees being treated poorly,
not respected or appreciated, and not having control. The employees within this
organisation perceive their employers’ priority of profit coming at the expense
of staff wellbeing and public safety. As a result the employees actively resist
LEISURE AT WORK, WHO CAN RESIST? 455
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