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Sales Floor Solidarity: Understanding Union Organizing in Retail

In: Revolutionizing Retail

Author

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  • Kendra Coulter

Abstract

Retail workers actively engage in a range of strategies to reassert their self-worth and try to improve their daily lives. They do so on their own and/or in groups. Smaller, daily tactics are employed, such as taking an extra five minutes on break or pretending not to see a particularly rude customer. Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) argues that restaurant servers have so little control of their daily labor that the allocation of extra condiments, one domain over which workers have control, is used to express some humanity and autonomy. In retail, workers reward respectful and kind customers by distributing extra samples, coupons, or free gifts, offering the discount that officially ended hours earlier, providing an item for free if it will not scan, and so forth. These strategies can serve as expression of workers’ own humanity, as a small act of defiance against their employer, and/or as an act of solidarity with customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Kendra Coulter, 2014. "Sales Floor Solidarity: Understanding Union Organizing in Retail," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Revolutionizing Retail, chapter 0, pages 55-93, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-36116-5_3
    DOI: 10.1057/9781137361165_3
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