WEI Seminar with visiting postdoctoral researcher Alba Arenales Lope
| Dates: | 15 October 2025 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Work and Equalities Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Alba Arenales Lope |
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Mobilising Power Resources in Hospitality: Strategic Use of Pickets, Strikes, and Legal Action in Spain
Hospitality is one of the main industries in Spain, representing more than 9% of the workforce. Yet, as elsewhere, precarity is prevalent in the sector, marked by the widespread use of part-time and temporary contracts as well as informal work, and it employs a largely young, feminised, and migrant workforce. While this sector faces important challenges to collective mobilisation – among them high staff turnover and the widespread view of hospitality as transitional work – the capacity of workers to resist deteriorating conditions is often underestimated.
In this seminar, I will present preliminary findings from my qualitative research, which draws on interviews with organisers and participants from a variety of workers’ organisations. I examine three of the most common tactics used in labour disputes in the Spanish hospitality sector: legal action, strike action, and picketing. The presentation will focus in particular on picketing, as a widely employed tactic within escalatory strategies, illustrating how hospitality workers adapt their repertoires of action to the distinctive characteristics of this sector. Building on the Power Resource Approach, I argue that although the structural power of hospitality workers is limited, their strategic use of associational, ideational, and coalitional resources has enabled them to achieve significant victories.
This event is open to internal staff and students at The University of Manchester. Please register via Eventbrite.
Speaker
Alba Arenales Lope
Role: Postdoctoral Researcher
Organisation: Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence)
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
G.018
Aliiance Manchester Business School
Booth Street West
Manchester
