Disruption, Tactics, and Labour Power in Hospitality

Disruption is a core concept in social movement studies, commonly understood as the capacity of collective action to break with routine, generate uncertainty, and impose costs on opponents (Tarrow, 2011: 99). Within the literature on contentious politics, disruption has been conceptualised as a key form of contention within modern repertoires of action, while labour scholarship has more often linked disruption to the withdrawal of work from production. This paper revisits the concept of disruption by examining a range of labour-related tactics that operate at the margins of the workplace, including boycotts, picketing, reputational campaigns, and other forms of external pressure. Drawing on ongoing qualitative research on hospitality worker mobilisation in Spain and the United Kingdom since the financial crisis, the paper uses empirical material to examine how these tactics operate in a sector characterised by fragmented workplaces, high turnover, and limited opportunities for sustained workplace organising. Rather than treating these practices as primarily symbolic, the paper conceptualises them as instances of externalised production disruption: a tactical logic through which collective actors interrupt production by targeting the market-facing conditions under which services are produced and realised. In service economies, where production is inseparable from consumption, disruption can be generated not only through labour withdrawal but also by constraining customer access, undermining reputational stability, and unsettling everyday consumption routines. This mode of disruption cuts across multiple tactics and does not depend on participants occupying key positions within the targeted workplace. This paper contributes to social movement scholarship on tactical innovation under conditions of constraint. While grounded in empirical material from hospitality labour struggles, the argument posited speaks more broadly to how movements can generate disruption in contexts where traditional forms of workplace-based power are weak, showing the adaptability of disruptive strategies in contemporary service economies.