What is it about?
This article explores low-wage workers in the hospitality industry in one Midwest city and chronicles their struggles in achieving unionization through UNITE HERE, a representative bargaining unit which organizes service workers.
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Why is it important?
Recognizing the difficulty for low-wage workers in balancing the economic power dynamic in labor management relationships is necessary if a more equitable system of pay, benefits, and dignity in the workplace is to exist.
Perspectives
The imbalance in the current labor management dichotomy has increased the gap between low-wage workers and employers who seek to extract surplus value from workers without equitable wage compensation. For low-wage workers, this leads to extreme poverty, a decreased standard of living, increased mental and physical anguish, and devaluing and exploitation in the workplace. In order for low-wage workers to achieve better working conditions including increased pay and benefits, representative collectives and changes in workers' rights law must be in place.
Dr. Marquita R Walker
Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Hospitality in Jeopardy, SAGE Open, July 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/2158244016661749.
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