Precarity’s Prospect: Contingent Control and Union Renewal in the Retail Sector

Abstract

Precarity and deunionization have grown up (or down) together. Yet the focus of union renewal scholars on the forms and constituencies of organizing has neglected a holistic appraisal of their connection and the role of work itself. This article uses a focused examination of frontline retail to understand the links between deteriorating job quality, new modes of control and their effects on worker consciousness. Based on qualitative interviews with 75 workers at Macy’s and Target stores, I identify a paradigm of contingent control embodied in precarious employment, routinized tasks, “soft” management and a largely “secondary” workforce. This regime diminishes job identity and opposition but heightens workers’ solidarity, pointing toward a model of community-based industrial unionism that could serve as an organizational vehicle to reverse the growth of precarity.