Abstract
Written by 18 contributing authors, Invisible Labor discusses the current state of invisible (e.g., cleaners, warehouse workers) and visible labor (e.g., female workers in “brestaurants”). The collection’s 14 chapters are divided into five key parts: exposing invisible labor, virtually invisible, pushed out of sight, looking good, as well as branded and consumed. Based on a 2013 colloquium and a foreword by Arlie Hochschild, the Introduction notes that “invisibility has typically been associated with minimum-wage jobs or the underground economy” (p. 4), but it can also be found in “‘unpaid internships’ [and in work that is] not valued [and] unregulated” (p. 5). With this precursor the editors deliver a definition of invisible labor which is seen
as activities that occur within the context of paid employment that workers perform in response to requirements (either implicit or explicit) from employers and that are crucial for workers to generate income, to obtain or retain their jobs, and to further their careers, yet are often overlooked, ignored, and/or devalued by employers, consumers, workers, and ultimately the legal system itself. (p. 6)
While the definition does not specifically address the issue of invisibility, the authors say “not everything qualifies as invisible labor” (p. 7). One might argue that invisible labor is a form of “precarious work” (p. 11). In a theorizing chapter, John Budd defines work as “purposeful human activity involving physical or mental exertion that is not undertaken solely for pleasure and that has economic or symbolic value” (p. 29). He also mentions the hallucination that “employment is a contractual relation between legal equals” (p. 33). This is presented without discussing the structural-economic asymmetries of labor markets. Budd forgot to mention what French Nobel Prize winner Anatole Thibault once said: “in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.”
One of the interesting chapters is by Miriam Cherry. She discusses the invisible labor behind Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., weeding out “child pornography, beheading videos, and illustrations of torture” (p. 71). This work is done by real – albeit invisible – workers and not by machines as many would assume. Machines come into play in Winifred Poster’s chapter on “virtual receptionists.” Despite the lovely pictures in the chapter, holographic receptionists appear more like a distant utopia than widespread reality. In “Hidden From View,” Elizabeth Pendo shows how and why disabled workers are hidden and why only about one-third of all disabled workers work, despite their wish to work. Meanwhile, two-thirds of non-disabled workers are employed.
One of the most insightful chapters is Evan Stewart’s “Simply White,” discussing why farm labor is presented as white (if shown at all) on TV and other commercial advertisements. Meanwhile the actual labor is mostly non-white. This is the “process of whitewashing” (p. 133). Advertising seems not only to “re-master race” (p. 135), it seems to be fixated on Nietzsche’s “master race.” TV advertising for orange juice, for example, pretends “nature does the hard work” (p. 139) so there is no need to do such work as climb up ladders or carry heavy loads and be exposed to toxic chemicals. In reality, the dangerous and invisible work is carried out by “migrant bodies” (p. 140). But TV advertising prefers “romanticizing the (usually white) family farmer” (p. 141). The “reality-vs.-ideology” theme is further exposed in Eileen Otis’s and Zheng Zhao’s brilliant chapter “Producing Invisibility,” which examines Wal-Mart in China and provides a real insight into the underpaid working conditions at Wal-Mart. This chapter is an undeniable highlight of participatory research – a most exquisite piece of industrial sociology.
While the above chapters deal with invisible labor, Dianne Avery’s chapter “The Female Breast as Brand” discusses the very opposite, namely the depiction of breasts in “brestaurants … such as Hooters” (p. 171). And indeed, breasts are important for the billion dollar operation. Unfortunately, Avery does not discuss why such places thrive in a sexually repressive society, like the USA (among others), as psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud would undoubtedly argue. The visibility theme is continued in William and Connell’s chapter “The Invisible Consequences of Aesthetic Labor in Upscale Retail Stores” operating with a high turnover albeit offering substantial discounts to attract workers. Apart from the excellent insights into actual work arrangements, the chapter would have, at least theoretically, benefitted from Baudrillard’s “Theory of Sign Value,” as many of these workers are denigrated to becoming a mere sign for a brand.
Chris Warhurst discusses “From Invisible Work to Invisible Workers,” outlining the change from farming (person→land) to factories (person→machine) to the “post-industrial age” (p. 217) of a person→person relationship. The aforementioned branding is further hyped up as “self-branding” in Arvidsson’s chapter, in which the “outsourced self [appears on] digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter” (p. 240). This sort of corporate enforced exhibitionism is carried forward in Marion Crain’s “Consuming Work,” quoting “Starbucks CEO Howard Schutz [who said], ‘We are not … in the coffee business serving people…[we] are in the business serving coffee’” (p. 263). CEO statements like these appear to be mere ideology designed to camouflage what is really going on. What is really going on was so pointedly noted by a General Motors CEO when saying, “General Motors is not in business to make cars, but to make money” (Johnson, 1964; emphasis in original). Most surprisingly, GM, just like Starbucks, is in the business of making money.
Rather briefly, the conclusion mentions countermeasures against visible and invisible labor highlighting the examples of the recent mobilization of the Service Employees International Union, a Workplace Project in New York, and the Chicago Workplace Coalition’ (p. 288). The collection closes with
… the invisibility of labor. It discusses, for example, workers, work processes, and mechanisms of discrimination. These are contested through collaborative efforts of workers, consumers, legal advocates, and state officials. (p. 289)
As is so often the case with collected volumes, the book contains a potpourri with some enormously exceptional chapters well worth reading.