WAITIN’ ON THE WORKPLACE TO CHANGE: MANAGERIAL CONTROL, RESTAURANT INDUSTRY DYNAMICS, AND TIPPED WORKER RESISTANCE

Abstract

This study investigates how industry dynamics and managerial control shape tipped workers’ resistance behaviors in the restaurant service industry. Specifically, interview participants were employees working in Oklahoma, a state with the lowest minimum wage laws for tipped workers in the restaurant industry. Analysis of interviews with servers and bartenders revealed that managerial control, in the Edwards (1979) sense of simple arbitrary control, often shaped when, how, and whether tipped workers engaged in resistance; specifically, workers tended to engage in routine resistance behaviors based on constantly evolving evaluations of fairness. Arbitrary control forms and income volatility led to chronic evaluations of (un)fairness by tipped workers, thus increasing uncertainty and precarity in the workplace.