2.1 Workplace spaces
Classically, industrial work meant large numbers of people cooperating together under a single roof – in a factory, for example. Such a configuration meant that managers were able to apply in-person monitoring techniques to measure the amount of time workers spent at work, as well as their productivity. In return, workers found it easier to unionise – trade unions could form and grow through people talking during and between shifts under the same roof. Black people have a proud history of leadership within UK trade unions, innovating through campaigns and organising, often while overcoming significant racism from fellow trade unionists in the process (Ramdin, 2017).
As work in the UK has become more oriented to services rather than manufacturing, so the spaces of work have also evolved. Office ‘space’ can now stretch between and across offices, countries and home spaces. Communication becomes more digital and continuous; rather than being discrete, held in meetings between people who are physically co-present. It is increasingly necessary to rethink how leadership occurs, not just between people in the same room, but via video links and through apps.
Service work is usually conducted under conditions that are less secure and with lower pay – with warehouse and delivery work being the exemplars. Under such conditions, opportunities for leadership in work are limited, as workspaces become dominated by managing people (Grint and Smolović Jones, 2022). However, novel forms of leadership between workers can take shape. As Black people remain overrepresented in service work, it’s important to think about how people in these roles can use their positionality to generate leadership (Smolović Jones et al., 2022). Such leadership will undoubtedly be different to that seen in industrial times, involving workers looking to subvert the ways in which they are monitored, and using their physical geography in ways that help them exercise power. For example, a wave of largely successful strikes from refuse collectors in the UK in the early 2020s was effective in part because the local councils responsible for paying the workers could not cope with the complaints from residents (not to mention the sanitary issues) that arose as the uncollected rubbish started piling up in the streets.