ii. The labour process and eating in the industries studied

In the industries I studied, management controlled the pattern and length of the working day, most obviously by organising work on a shift system, but also by controlling the pace of work.

One theme, which emerged strongly in my interviews with shiftworkers, was that of the pressure and pace of work, which gave no time to eat.

It’s full pelt right from 7.00am. (Elaine - nurse)

You’re governed by time all the time. (Mick- ambulance worker)

We’re so short of crews...that they’ll just work you and work you and work you, not giving you any chance for a break at all. (Melanie - nurse)

Because you have to do all those jobs in there you’re not able to stop and eat. You have to do first the job, then eat. (Shahzia - nurse)

What did these shiftworkers see as the reason for this situation? For some it was the sheer amount of work they had to do, and this they perceived as due to shortages of staff. However, lack of time could also be seen as reflecting the degree of control over the pace of work exercised by management. The concept of the labour process draws attention to managerial control exercised over the nature and method of performance of the task, the speed of work, and the length of the working day, including the timing and length of breaks. One nurse described her experience of the organisation of work in the hospital.

Well, what it is, the morning shift basically consists of washing everybody, dressing them, getting them up, and they’re all in various stages of re-hab (rehabilitation) and they all need various stages of help, but it's like a heavy shift ‘cos every patient, well most patients, have to be up by 10.30. You come on at 7.15 and there’s baths to do, breakfasts, drugs, then it’s washes, and dressing and getting up. So it’s like a mega­

hectic shift getting them all up and once you’ve got them all washed and dressed they’ve all got to get out of bed, and it’s physical - there’s a lot of physical lifting....

finishes about 11.30. It relaxes after that. (Jenny - nurse)

This description was reminiscent of the description in Beynon (1973) of the organisation of work on an assembly line. Patients had lost their individuality, as indicated by use of the word ‘them1,

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and had to be ‘processed’ according to a fixed time schedule. The use of the phrases, such as

‘have to’ and ‘got to’ as reasons for these types of work practices was also interesting as it suggested this nurse perceived this pattern of organisation of work as inevitable, rather than as chosen by management.

Other interviewees emphasised more that it was the object of their labour which determined their work process. As the objects of the nurses’ labour were human (the patients), their needs were not predictable, but had to be met as they arose.

Patients have their meal at 12.30. Their meal obviously comes first. (Liz - nurse)

It has been suggested that these different views of the work process reflected the restructuring in the National Health Service (NHS) in the late 1980’s and 1990’s, which had brought about an

‘uneasy coexistence’ between Fordist and post-Fordist styles of management and working practices. Fordism was characterised by specialised divisions of labour, bureaucratic hierarchies and centralised control, and post-Fordism by flexibility, decentralisation and more responsiveness to the ‘consumer’ (Halford, Savage and Witz 1997:93).

The importance of a centralised time schedule in structuring activities in hospitals, consistent with a Fordist approach, has also been noted by Sellerberg (1991), who found that life in geriatric hospitals was tightly organised around a time-schedule in which meal times played an important part. Meals provided fixed points by which certain tasks had to be accomplished. Both patients and staff, she argued, were '...subordinated to the fixed mealtime system’ (Sellerberg 1991:70). In my study also, the times designated by hospital management for patients’ meals provided a framework around which the rigid time schedule was organised.

However, one staff nurse suggested that nurses themselves might have been partly responsible for some of the pressure of work they experienced.

Nurses have got this ritual of everything's got to be done first thing in the morning. And they won't stop till they've done everything...then perhaps they'll go for a break. (Elaine - staff nurse)

Issues surrounding the control and pace of work also emerged as central themes in interviews with ambulance workers.

You’ve got to be accountable for every single minute of the day and everything is logged...Obviously you’re aware of this all the time - about time, time limits. (Mary - ambulance worker)

According to Noon and Blyton (1997), constant surveillance and supervision of the work process by management is a consequence of organising the labour process according to the principles of scientific management, as management cannot assume the workforce will comply

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without coercion. Scientific management techniques seemed to predominate within the ambulance service, as every work activity was allotted an allowed time for its performance. 3 minutes were allowed, for example, for a visit to the toilet. The application of scientific management principles to the organisation of the labour process meant that control of the work process was exercised by control over the length of the working day, and by organisation of work on a shift system. Control was also exercised by control over time allowed for tasks, and the manner in which tasks were to be performed was also specified by management, so constraining also the circumstances in which eating at work could take place. Organisation of the labour process had consequences for the social organisation of eating at work.

Control over the pace of work was also the subject of a special management initiative in the ambulance service at the time of the study. Managers wanted to reduce ‘response times’ (the time taken by crews to respond to incidents), and manage the service in line with the ‘expected’

pattern of emergencies. They had proposed that crews should not return to the ambulance station between incidents, but wait at places nearer to where accidents usually occurred, such as motorway junctions, so as to respond more quickly.

However, the service could not be totally controlled by scientific management techniques; it was clearly impossible for management to determine the exact time and place of accidents. The emergency nature of the work, therefore, determined the labour process to some extent as, because workers were dealing with emergencies, the work could not be stopped or rescheduled; tasks had to be performed immediately, without interruption, and so there could be no thought of taking a break. Also, the object of the ambulance workers’ labour was human, and so needs were unpredictable and had to be met immediately.

Scientific management principles were also apparent in the organisation of the labour process in banking. Some staff were under constant managerial supervision at work, and their performance regulated by time. One data network manager described his job as 'heavily procedurised’ in that there were many tasks which had to be performed as a matter of routine.

That the work process was more routine was not surprising as the object of labour for bank staff was an inanimate object - money - and so the work could more easily be scheduled to allow for a meal break. However, bank staff did face emergencies occasionally, and were expected to work all hours to correct the fault.

It’s a very pressured environment, particularly in the financial side of things, and I mean by that the stocks and shares dealing services. When they fail you’ve literally got seconds ticking away and you’re losing thousands of pounds in interest, so you’ve got to recover service quickly, so that can be highly pressured. (Henry - bank worker)

The three industries studied provided interesting comparisons and contrasts in terms of the ways in which the labour process was organised and the implications of this for workers’ eating habits. Both the ambulance and health workers provided a service to people, rather than

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dealing with inanimate objects, and this influenced the labour process and the ability of management to schedule the work. The demands of patients had to come first and these demands might be unpredictable, causing the schedule to be changed and meal breaks for staff to be treated as less important. Moral obligations to patients also controlled staff in the health service, expressed through the professional ideology of nursing which emphasised the notion of duty. The labour process in banking was more predictable and routine, as the object of the labour process was inanimate - money. Consequently, bank workers operated more in the context of the formal rules in a large, bureaucratic organisation, and, although their work process was tightly controlled, they also enjoyed a more predictable working environment and regular breaks.

9.6 SUMMARY

In this chapter I described the experience of eating at work for shiftworkers in my study. Many shiftworkers were dissatisfied with their eating habits at work, and eating was generally problematic for them. The facilities available to eat at work outside of ‘normal’ hours tended to be limited, and some found snacks from vending machines could be more easily obtained than cooked meals.

Meals at work tended to be depressing affairs; they were eaten at inappropriate times, either too soon or too late, and could be missed altogether. Meals were not generally seen as enjoyable occasions to relax and chat with colleagues, but were rushed affairs, frequently eaten alone.

Many shiftworkers in my study ate ‘convenience’ foods at work, such as snacks of crisps and chocolate, sandwiches and takeaway meals or other fast foods. Shiftworkers’ eating patterns as a result tended to be erratic and disorganised, with different patterns on different shifts.

However, some shiftworkers in banking enjoyed more satisfactory circumstances in which to eat at work, having longer, guaranteed meal breaks, a subsidised canteen, and the ability, usually, to control the pace of their work to allow a meal break to be taken.

In conclusion, it would seem that Charles and Kerr’s claim that the eating patterns of women in their study depended on a '... lifestyle which is often determined by circumstances outside her control’ (Charles & Kerr 1986:559) could be applied to the shiftworkers in my study. In developing my analysis in this chapter I have sought to integrate together weberian, marxist and symbolic interactionist approaches, following Smith (1988). In analysing shiftworkers’ eating habits I began by outlining their experiences of eating at work, and then explored the processes through which eating habits were structured. I argued eating patterns at work were constrained in a number of ways - through formal, organisational rules, through the organisation of the labour process according to the principles of scientific management, and through the meanings individuals attached to the social situations in which food was consumed. In the next chapter I explore food and eating in shiftworkers’ home and family lives.

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CHAPTER 10: THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF FOOD AND EATING AT HOME AMONG