Rethinking Workplace Culture

Abstract

Using oral histories as well as corporate and union records, this article examines fleet service clerks’ construction of a workplace culture based on their ability to control their idle time as much as the work process. These workers who loaded and unloaded aircraft valued the ability to “get along” over brute strength and socialized new hires to value and protect downtime. While the airlines encouraged corporate loyalty and customer service, fleet service clerks used strikes and slowdowns—often in view of waiting passengers—in their struggle to uphold union contracts and also informally recognized downtime.