Policy Press

What’s Wrong with Work?

By Lynne Pettinger

Published

Apr 24, 2019

Page count

240 pages

Browse the series

21st Century Standpoints

ISBN

978-1447340089

Dimensions

216 x 138 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Apr 24, 2019

Page count

240 pages

Browse the series

21st Century Standpoints

ISBN

978-1447341031

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Apr 24, 2019

Page count

240 pages

Browse the series

21st Century Standpoints

ISBN

978-1447341048

Dimensions

Imprint

Policy Press
What’s Wrong with Work?

Why does work matter? As changes occur in how work is organised across the globe, What’s wrong with work shows that how workers are treated has wide implications beyond the lives of workers themselves.

Recognising gender, race, class and global differences, the book looks at three kinds of increasingly important work – green work, IT work and the ‘gig’ economy - within the context of the neoliberal society, the promises of technologisation and anticipated environmental catastrophe. It considers the ways formal work is often dependent on informal work, especially domestic work and care work.

Accessible and engaging, it concludes by considering political and ethical questions in what might make work better, arguing that there is a collective responsibility to address bad work.

Dr Lynne Pettinger is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, where she teaches modules that explore work in contemporary capitalism. She worked previously at University of Essex and City University. She has researched and written extensively about many kinds of work.

Part 1


Framing the present: Capitalism, work and crisis

Work as production

Deleted labour and hidden work

How does a body work?

Work now;

Part 2

Informal work and everyday life

Technology

Green work