ISBN
978-1529204032Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529204018Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529204049Imprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529204056Imprint
Bristol University Press
The Harms of Work
In the media
On our blog: 'Why our fixation on the employment rate masks a more harmful truth'
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.
"Drawing on original and insightful ethnographic research, this book is indispensable for academics, practicioners and policy makers interested in the harms associated with contemporary service work. A compelling and thought-provoking read." Sam Scott, University of Gloucestershire
“…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
Dr Anthony Lloyd is Co-Director at the Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology and Senior Lecturer in Criminology & Sociology at the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law, Teesside University. His research interests include work and employment, labour markets and the leisure and service economy, consumer culture, social harm, critical criminology, youth identity and transitions, political economy, debt, social theory, class cultures, and social change.
He researches broadly on the topics of work and leisure, most recently investigating the lives of young men and women engaged in low-paid service sector jobs in the North East. He has published work in this area, including his first book, Labour Markets and Identity on the Post-Industrial Assembly Line (Ashgate, 2013).
Introduction;
Chapter 1 – Reinterpreting social harm;
Chapter 2 – Restructuring labour markets;
Chapter 3 – Organisational culture and management practice;
Chapter 4 – The absence of stability;
Chapter 5 – The absence of protection;
Chapter 6 – The positive motivation to harm;
Chapter 7 – The violence of ideology;
Conclusion.
