Physical Work, Customer Service, or Teamwork? : Language Requirements for Seasonal Cleaning Work in the Booming Arctic Tourism Industry

Abstract

In many parts of the world, cleaning services are mostly subcontracted, which means intense competition and increased demand for efficiency. Consequently, the terms and conditions of employment have declined and the turnover of workers is high. Remote areas such as the Arctic face particular difficulties recruiting and retaining cleaning workers. Nonetheless, possibilities to earn and aspirations for a better life bring center – periphery, cross-border, and lifestyle mobilities to the peripheral north, especially in winter. This chapter examines cleaning as seasonal blue-collar work in a booming tourist destination in Arctic Finland. Applying an ethnographic and discourse analytical approach of nexus analysis, this chapter discusses three discourses circulating in the resort that are relevant to the language requirements of seasonal cleaning workers. The data collected in the Arctic tourist destination consist of interviews with recruiters and ethnographic observations of cleaners’ workdays. The chapter offers new insights into blue-collar work by showing how blue-collar workers also are expected to be mobile and work in multilingual environments under the current conditions of the globalized new economy. Further, teamwork is used as a control mechanism to standardize and intensify the work procedures.