ABSTRACT
The growth of the labor-intensive tourism sector in Turkey that employs a cheap, non-skilled labor force takes within the exportoriented economic model imposed by the 1980 military coup. As part of this new model rising upon a working class that remained disorganized after the coup, holiday villageswere built along the southern coasts of Turkey through various public incentives provided to entrepreneurs. Serving especially international tourists, holiday villages are entrusted with earning foreign currency within the new economic model. Absorbing the workforce that dissolve from the agriculture sector over time as well, holiday villages are workplaces that bring together seasonal jobs that demand both physical and emotional labor. In these sites of mass production of leisure services, labor control is executed through various mechanisms. This article deals with simple control as one of these mechanisms. Worker and manager interviewees mention that simple control is accentuated recently in such a developed capitalist workplace where empathy and ‘high-touch’ is part of service and information and communication technologies are utilized. Why is simple control accentuated recently? What are its elements observed in holiday villages?Data from field research based on participant observation and in-depth interviews points to the intensification of competition among firms
Keywords : Labor process, service workers, simple control, Taylorism
