Projects, Careers and Resistances in Hotels

The hotel industry is a sector with many unique and specific characteristics. It remains the archetype of low-wage sector, famous for the weakness of its negotiations in favour of employees, legendary for its diluted application of collective agreement or labour rules in France. However it offers a wide variety of positions and careers for young people and workers without any qualifications. A long way from explanations by the insufficient number of trained workers, or by any real lack of interest in hotel trades, there are recurring tensions affecting the sector (Viney, 2003) specific of the human resources management and the job quality (precarity, flexible working hours, low wages, physically demanding work, etc.). In addition to these pressures, there are a number of time constraints resulting from the working organization (part-time contract, non-standard hours, working at week-ends…) and employees ’ personal and family commitments outside the hotels. The accounts of employees ’ daily work reveal how is played the waltz of social times and the imperfect chords of work and family (Guégnard, 2004). Though the sector is reputedly mixed, women tend to occupy low-qualified positions, and half of them work on a part-time basis (Beauvois, 2003). The hotel industry rhythms appear as a hindrance to staff loyalty and female careers development. These questions will be addressed with the use of qualitative data based on individual interviews o