Out of Sight: Dimensions of Working Time in Gendered Occupations

Working time is a key aspect of the labour relationship; it is the issue in which businesses’ management of working time centrally shapes workers’ job and life quality. The relationship between work and time is gendered, and the present chapter focuses on working time in two highly feminised sectors: office cleaning and contract catering services. These are paradigmatic sectors for the flexible management of working time, because they share certain particularities regarding the social content and meaning of work. As a cleaning union representative in Spain pointed out ‘Cleaning does not exist as long as it gets done … when everything is clean it doesn’t exist; it has no value’. Cleaning and catering are regarded as complementary to the main functions carried out in workplaces such as schools, hospitals and offices, and this attitude is mirrored in the term ancillary services. Increasingly, these services are provided by specialised subcontractors. Outsourcing the services involves a transformation of the traditional relationship between employer and employees: it changes from a bilateral relationship to a triangle that involves employers, employees and clients (Grimshaw and Rubery, 2005; cf. Jaehrling et al., Chapter 9). This service triangle has a considerable impact on working time in cleaning and catering; in both sectors, the working activities are concentrated at specific times due to the requirements of customers. In the case of cleaning, this amounts to the need not to hinder the attainment of the main activity: teaching, office work, sales, etc. In the case of catering, it is due to the specific times of meals. As a consequence, atypical working hours are likely to affect the worker’s quality of life.