In an important sense contemporary economies are predominantly service economies. Critical social analysis, which has historically developed in relation to manufacturing settings, is beginning to address this central importance of service work. For instance, authors such as George Ritzer and Alan Bryman have developed a general approach to societies through root metaphors based in service settings (McDonaldization and Disneyization respectively). Other authors have applied particular traditions of critical social theory to the specificities of service work. This is an area of considerable and burgeoning intellectual energy and interest. At present, however, there is no one volume which brings together these different critical perspectives on services work. There is no volume which brings together these different critical perspectives and which reflects on their collective contribution, their compatibilities and their differences.

Everyday, we are bombarded with advertising images of the smiling service worker. The book is written with the aim of focusing beneath the surface of these fairy tale images, to seek out and understand the reality of service workersa (TM) experience. Within the sociology of work and related literatures, there are an increasing number of empirical studies of different types of service work, but there has been little progress in attempts to theorize the nature of service work, per se. This book fills this gap by bringing together major scholars from the US and UK who use a range of critical perspectives to explore key elements in the organization and experience of contemporary service work. It will make an invaluable secondary text for advanced undergraduates and graduates studying courses/modules such as sociology of work, industrial sociology, social theory and work, organization studies, and organizational theory.

This is a story about a kind crab who experiences an adventure when trying to decorate his Christmas Coral under the sea. Crab learns a very important lesson during the adventure.

In the labor market and workplace, anti-discrimination rules, affirmative action policies, and pay equity procedures exercise a direct effect on gender relations. But what can be done to influence the ways that men and women allocate tasks and responsibilities at home? In Gender Equality, Volume VI in the Real Utopias series, social scientists Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers propose a set of policies--paid family leave provisions, working time regulations, and early childhood education and care--designed to foster more egalitarian family divisions of labor by strengthening men's ties at home and women's attachment to paid work. Their policy proposal is followed by a series of commentaries--both critical and supportive--from a group of distinguished scholars, and a concluding essay in which Gornick and Meyers respond to a debate that is a timely and valuable contribution to egalitarian politics.

Continued economic restructuring has brought service work to center stage in labor and management studies, as well as in the sociology of work, gender, race, and inequality. This work features essays that explore questions of power and control, resistance and empowerment, and innovation and organizing in the lives of front-line service workers.