Part-time working in the ‘super-service’ era Labour force restructuring in the UK food retailing industry during the late 1980s and early 1990s

The paper begins to explore and unravel the intricate relationship between corporate strategy and labour market restructuring within the UK food retailing industry during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is argued that the increasingly diverse and heterogeneous nature of part-time working within UK food retailing has facilitated the metamorphosis of the corporate strategies employed by the major UK food retailers away from ones dominated by productivity enhancement of the new ‘Super-Service’ era. The introduction of Super-Service is shown to have had significant qualitative effects on the working practices and quality of work experienced by part-time workers within UK food retailing.