The literature on the role of customers in service work has neglected work that does not involve significant face-to-face interaction, assuming it to be distant from customer influence and thus highly routinisable. This article uses ethnographic data from housekeeping and room service in two...

Pierre-Paul Riquet build the Royal waterway of Languedoc (France) at the 17th century, waterway became then the Canal du Midi. In its time, it was the most significant European project. Inspired by other models of waterways built since Antiquity, it was used as model or example with much of...

Numerical flexibility is commonly promoted as a driver of employment growth. However, contingent work is frequently associated with “bad jobs”, particularly for those in low skilled occupations. Agency work is a common and growing form of contingent work and is often promoted as a tool for...

We present a detailed case study of the relationship between migrant labour and a trade union in a period immediately following 12 years of hostile neo-liberal politics in Australia: 1996-2007. We find that Australia's Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has reinvented itself...