The Harms of Work
An Ultra-Realist Account of the Service Economy
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bristol University Press
Published:31st Oct '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
As the percentage of people working in the service economy continues to rise, there is a need to examine workplace harm within low-paid, insecure, flexible and short-term forms of ‘affective labour’. This is the first book to discuss harm through an ultra-realist lens and examines the connection between individuals, their working conditions and management culture. Using data from a long-term ethnographic study of the service economy, it investigates the reorganisation of labour markets and the shift from security to flexibility, a central function of consumer capitalism. It highlights working conditions and organisational practices which employees experience as normal and routine but within which multiple harms occur. Challenging current thinking within sociology and policy analysis, it reconnects ideology and political economy with workplace studies and uses examples of legal and illegal activity to demonstrate the multiple harms within the service economy.
“…an exciting progression for social harm studies that offers tangible insight into how harm occurs in all facets of the workplace. I would recommend it to those influencing policy as providing concrete analytical tools for the design of labour market policies that can reduce harm... [and] academics who are already involved in the study of social harm as well as those wishing to gain a good overall insight into the field.” People, Place and Policy
ISBN: 9781529204018
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
200 pages