of labor effort performed by workers by the capitalists.
According to Wright, when points 1 and 2 are established then economic oppression is present, but it is not until point 3, the appropriation of labor effort is also established, that exploitation takes place. That one group can exploit another implies that the second group has no alternatives, which means that if the second group, the workers, were to find a scenario that improved their situation without it having to come from the capitalists, the capitalists would still be opposed to it (Wright 1997). This implies a general
maliciousness on the part of capitalists, similar to what Marx ([1867] 1977:248) implied when he discussed the uselessness of the M-C-M cycle from the standpoint of capitalists, partly because no profit is made from their endeavor, but also because they would
essentially be misers who put their money at risk by circulating it through commodities only just to have it return back to them later. The importance of this model of
exploitation, Wright says, is that a researcher can establish an exploitative relationship in the workplace (or any other social setting) that does not rely on a restrictive paradigm of analyzing the existence of labor-based value in a commodity. Labor-power is still present without being the central point of analysis, and the advanced stage of modern capitalism, with stock traders and multi-national corporations that were relatively non-existent in Marx’s time, are acknowledged and accounted for (Wright 1997). Whether or not Wright’s assertions about his theory as a present-day alternative to classical Marxism remains to be seen.
CONNECTING THE TWO THEORIES
Overall, the Wright theory serves as an ultimately sufficient model for capturing the broad nature of exploitation in general however, to look at the presence of
exploitation in a retail setting, does not necessarily require shifting completely away from the classical Marxian framework. As I stated above, this paper asserts that department store workers are in a state of opposition with the corporation as a whole, as they are regularly asked to perform duties beyond the scope of their intended position (Williams 2004; Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011). Such episodes of coercion can create
relationships of conflict and control because the material benefits of the corporation are highly dependent upon the subjugation and subsequent material detriments of the employees. Such hostilities contribute to the intense levels of stress, exhaustion,
depression, poverty, deviance etc. in workers’ lives (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009; Resnick and Wolff 2003; Kalleberg et al. 2000; Gruenberg 1980). These assertions, while
following in the rationale of the Wright model, demand a more in-depth analytical framework, which I believe the classical Marxian framework best provides.
As noted in the beginning, Mulder (2011) alleges that retail employees are unable to be exploited, only oppressed, because if they are not direct producers, then employers are unable to extract a surplus from their labor. This is the first point that should be addressed, not only to refute her statement that retail workers do not produce anything, but also to remind readers that Marx’s ideas in Capital were not aimed at industrial production alone. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in Marx’s work, and a primary reason why it is dismissed, as many people acknowledge that a vast majority of the labor force in the United State is no longer in direct production at factories.
Production is actually used by Marx in the broader sense that an individual gives some degree of inputs in certain processes of creating a material good or an immaterial service (output), expecting a certain material result from their effort.
Products are items with value and contribute usefulness to the person that consumes them. Just as someone who produces a chair on an assembly line can be exploited, so to can a teacher educating high school students, or a retail worker in an item-specific department. For the purposes of describing the relations of production physical commodities are more prevalent and provide a more visual description, but Marx was clear that this is only one half of production. What Mulder is missing here is that exploitation, for Marx, was not primarily about workers making things, i.e. material commodities to be sold. Exploitation is all about the workers generating more value from their laboring effort, which is stolen by the company. For these reasons I will discuss how drawing key aspects from the classical Marxian theory, with only minor adjustments, can
pull together support for the presence of exploitation within department store retail settings. First, though, the function of retail should be discussed, for in order to
understand how and where exploitation occurs, it should be understood the complexion of what a worker goes through.
What Is the Operation of a Retail Store?
Retail is the task of individuals, who act on behalf of a large corporation, providing physical goods and/or mental services individuals to the general public in exchange for a set amount of money. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013),
“the retailing process is the final step in the distribution of merchandise; retailers are, therefore, organized to sell merchandise in small quantities to the general public. This sector comprises two main types of retailers: store and non-store retailers.” Store retailers operate at static locations, intended to attract customers from the outside. Retail stores use particularized product displays and advertising techniques to present merchandise for customers. Retailers most commonly do business with the general public alone, offering items that satisfy personal or household needs, but occasionally work is done with other businesses or local governments (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013).
What Do Retail Workers Produce?
Although Mulder misses the point as to what Marx is saying about production, it is true that workers in any industry do “produce” in the broader sense of inputs and outputs discussed above. Additionally, in retail, although the day-to-day tasks of many stores will vary somewhat based upon the types of commodities they sell, there are a few general tasks that are common to all, which are performed by the individual workers
within the stores and set the basis for what retail workers produce. Tasks vary between things such as cleaning/dusting, stocking shelves, building displays, overstocking excess product, unloading trucks, checking out items at cash registers, and most importantly, helping customers. In most “big-box” stores such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Sears, etc.
there are three classes of workers: cashiers, who operate a register and check out items for customers; receivers, who unload products from trucks, allocate them amongst their specific departments, and put away pallets of bulk overstock; sales floor associates are the third group, whose responsibilities are “customer service”, which is a dressed up term for sales; this is what the company hires them for when they offer them a position at the store. A few terms should be clarified here.
A sale is the completed act of selling a commodity in exchange for another commodity, which almost always is money. Selling is the actual process of making a sale, whereas a sale is the completion of selling. To make it clearer, when a retail worker engages a customer with regards to a product, they do so with the intention of exchanging that product for the customer’s money. The actions and behaviors they go through in this process are all part of their method to sell the product to the customer, or selling. A sale, on the other hand is the completion of that process and only exists in the actualized form, similar to how Marx said a use-value only becomes a reality once it has been used. The money given in exchange for the commodity is a pre-determined “price.” Prices are a certain quantity of money that a customer gives to the store in exchange for the product.
Prices are different than exchange-values, as exchange-values represent the embodied labor of a commodity, whereas prices are set by the store, based upon various factors of
production and are often set at a hire amount than would be the exchange-value as capitalist corporations are seeking to generate the most profit from an item as they can.
Upon first thought the phrase “customer service” would make a person think that sales floor associates are there to assist customers with any shopping needs such as finding a product, explaining any features of that product, and directing them around the store, and therefore serving as a “store assistant” if customers should so need. All of those examples are characteristics of part of what a sales floor associate does on a daily basis, but they are not entirely accurate, nor are they exhaustive. The primary objective of retail is to move products out the doors, which will then generate a profit for the company via the inflated prices on products. This means that sales floor associates are not hired to merely assist customers, but to encourage the customer, by way of selling, to purchase products while they are assisting them. Included with these selling duties are all of the supplementary tasks such as setting up products in location-specific areas of the store to aid in a quick find (and therefore a quick sale) for the customer. There is also the
continuous tasks of maintaining clean work areas, setting up new displays and taking down the old ones; making in-store announcements that alert shoppers to any specials which might be going on; stocking the items that the receivers bring out so as to maintain full shelves and attractive aisles; changing out price tags; updating product information cards; bringing down and putting away small-sized overstock from above the aisles; the list goes on and on. All of these tasks are what I call “incidental sales”, tasks that contribute to an eventual sale, but are, in their own actuality, separate from the real process of selling.
The concept of incidental sales is important because it distinguishes what workers actually do compared to what they are hired to do. One could say that retail workers produce sales, however this is only partially true. Such a statement could only be made if workers are actually engaged in the process of selling, given that incidental sales are not guaranteed sales, and are only done so with the hopes of enhancing or accompanying a real sale. Also it is incorrect to say that the product of a retail worker’s labor is sales because there is no guarantee as to how the tasks that an individual worker must perform will be divided each day. It is entirely possible that someone will work exclusively on incidental sales tasks.
Simply put, sales floor associates produce an assortment of what I am calling laboring services, the sum total of which are the combination of incidental and real sales,
the accumulation of retail laboring effort. This is not to say that they are hired to produce laboring services, they are not. Workers are hired to produce sales, but they are forced to produce laboring services when actually on the clock4. The distinction allows us to draw two points from it: 1) the company dictates how a position is classified, but also, how it is actually realized and 2) the company states that they are paying the worker for what has been determined to be a portion of the actual labor that they perform (sales), while potentially not compensating them for the other portion (the remainder of their laboring services); I will expand upon each of these, but first it should be noted that I am not emphasizing the details of what workers produce in order to simply prove Mulder wrong,
4It should not be misunderstood that workers are not responsible for all of the sales in the store.
Sales are simply not the sole product of a retail worker’s laboring effort, but sales are the objective of what a retail worker’s pay is based on. While some workers on certain days will produce none or only a small amount of direct sales, the class of retail workers are still, as a whole, responsible for the generation of sales in the store.
but rather to give specific details of where exploitation is occurring. These differences in what workers are said to produce and what they actually are producing is what Marx was referring to when he explained relative surplus-labor ([1867] 1977:326 – 327). The company is increasing productivity without increasing the wages valued in that position.
Classification and Realization of a Retail Position
It is no surprise that a company decides what the nature of a position will be given that it is their position to fill. What is unique is the precision with which retail companies determine just how a position will be performed. In order to maximize sales, retail companies formulate what tasks must be done in every facet, leaving very little room for deviation within the individual stores. Sales “scripts” and training manuals are devised to teach workers what words to say and how to position their body language when
interacting with a customer. Videos and diagrams are also crafted to ensure that workers perform their incidental sales work in a manner that not only replicates exactly how the company wants, but to make certain that the shortest and most efficient methods are taken so as to avoid an unnecessary expenditure of labor on anyone task. “Shortest and most efficient” acknowledges that the way a work activity is crafted does not necessarily mean that it is the soundest method, but the one that accomplishes the basic requirements of the task in the least amount of time.
That a position can be shaped in such a way is equivalent to what Marx termed abstract labor, that is, pure laboring duration abstracted from its concrete qualities (Marx [1867] 1977:131). Although certain workers may perform certain tasks in their own specified way, there is nothing about the position in general that demands the specialized
skill of a worker to perform retail labor. A position in a retail store is one that is
reproducible, that is it is something that at any point could be filled by another person of equal ability and experience. What makes retail work reproducible is that the scope of the work is trainable, beyond just explaining the complexion and purpose of the position.
Additionally, the positions could not be commissioned sales work because pay would be based upon performance and therefore not abstract. Big-box retail stores rarely have their workers labor for commissioned sales, despite claiming that the workers are sales
associates. As I have said, every task that is performed in a retail setting is done with the intention of generating and/or increasing sales and commissioned work places too much responsibility in the hands of employees. Maintaining positions that classify as abstract labor are essential to keeping all day-to-day activities in line with what the company wants.
Labor-Power in Retail
Workers who perform laboring services, whether knowingly or not, are actually exchanging their entire laboring ability to the company, specifically their labor-power as defined by Marx above. They are selling their whole ability to perform useful labor, rather than one specific skill. To elaborate, if a worker at a retail store assembled displays of lawn mowers all day long, and this was the only activity they engaged in while on the clock, we would say that this worker produced assembled lawn mower displays, and that they sold to the company their ability to assemble lawn mower displays. Similarly, if a worker only cleaned shelves or only stocked products in aisles, we would say that they produced clean shelves and fully stocked aisles, respectively, and that they sold to the
company their ability to clean shelves or to stock products. In reality, though, floor workers do not work on only one of these activities, but on all of them.
There is no stipulation in the hiring process, which states that a worker will not be asked to perform X, Y, and Z tasks; Certain obscure tasks are most likely never to be asked of them, but nonetheless there is no company rule stating that the worker will only perform a specific task at all times for the remainder of their employment with the company. Even state labor laws, which might reduce the scope of work for an employee are not necessarily implemented. Additionally, this includes all workers on the floor in a retail department store, not just those in the “sales” positions. Cashiers, and receivers who are frequently used as examples of positions that only perform one specific task, do not actually labor as such. When a cashier has no customers in their line they are told to either straighten or stock products at the register, to clean, or to direct customers passing down the main aisle in front of them. Similarly, receivers often deviate from their primary tasks of unloading trucks to deal with maintenance work around the store, or equipment repair. All of these individuals are told that their position is specifically structured in the manner it was defined upon their hiring and are therefore paid as such;
but this is not the actuality. For these reasons it is important to emphasize that the worker sells her or his entire laboring ability, or labor-power to the company.
A convenient rebuttal to this assertion would be that when a worker is hired they are informed that they will occasionally be asked to perform other duties beyond sales, or checking out customers, or unloading trucks. Indeed this is often true, and in the cases where this happens some level of consent must occur and the worker is, in a sense, acknowledging that they will be exploited, however the job is a necessity and they have
very little ability to counter this. While the discussion up to this point appears to establish the existence of exploitation in retail, it is not yet safe to make this claim. Some other principles must first be discussed, primarily to combat the argument that incidental sales tasks are actually incorporated into a worker’s wages.
Wage-Rates
If it is permitted that workers produce laboring services and that it is being argued that exploitation occurs in retail work, then a question arises, ‘are retail workers being paid for laboring services?’ Someone who teaches is said to be paid to educate students;
someone who builds doors is said to be paid to craft the wood into doors; someone who sells cars is said to be paid to sell cars, and so on. If a person were to say that someone who performs laboring services is paid to perform a variety of laboring services they would be correct, but that is not what a retail worker is paid for. A retail worker is told that they are paid to make sales, namely, to sell products to customers, this is why the title of their position is sales associate, but sales associates do not just sell as we have observed, they perform laboring services. This opens the door for management to ask any number of tasks or responsibilities from the worker without appropriately compensating them for the additional labor.
When wage-rates are being determined for an occupation, a common question asks what the valuation of that job is which justifies setting the hourly wage-rate at (for example) $8.00. The company might then calculate the time and effort it takes to perform the duties associated with that position, divided them out to an hourly ratio of output, and then associate an hourly dollar amount with those tasks. In retail, though, it is not so