Working for respect : community and conflict at Walmart / Peter Bearman, Adam Reich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reich, Adam, author.

Bearman, Peter, author.

Series:

Middle range.

The Middle Range Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wal-Mart (Firm)--Employees.

Wal-Mart (Firm).

Discount houses (Retail trade)--United States--Management--Case studies.

Discount houses (Retail trade).

Retail trade--Moral and ethical aspects--United States.

Retail trade.

Corporations--Moral and ethical aspects--United States.

Corporations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Walmart is the largest employer in the world. It encompasses nearly 1 percent of the entire American workforce-young adults, parents, formerly incarcerated people, retirees. Walmart also presents one possible future of work-Walmartism-in which the arbitrary authority of managers mixes with a hyperrationalized, centrally controlled bureaucracy in ways that curtail workers' ability to control their working conditions and their lives.In Working for Respect, Adam Reich and Peter Bearman examine how workers make sense of their jobs at places like Walmart in order to consider the nature of contemporary low-wage work, as well as the obstacles and opportunities such workplaces present as sites of struggle for social and economic justice. They describe the life experiences that lead workers to Walmart and analyze the dynamics of the shop floor. As a part of the project, Reich and Bearman matched student activists with a nascent association of current and former Walmart associates: the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart). They follow the efforts of this new partnership, considering the formation of collective identity and the relationship between social ties and social change. They show why traditional unions have been unable to organize service-sector workers in places like Walmart and offer provocative suggestions for new strategies and directions. Drawing on a wide array of methods, including participant-observation, oral history, big data, and the analysis of social networks, Working for Respect is a sophisticated reconsideration of the modern workplace that makes important contributions to debates on labor and inequality and the centrality of the experience of work in a fair economy.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Real, Real Walmart

1. Pathways

2. The Shop Floor

3. The Structure of Domination and Control

4. Making Contact

5. Social Ties and Social Change

6. OUR Walmart on the Line

7. Our Walmart

Appendix: The Neural Signatures of Group Life

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Sep 2018)

ISBN:

9780231547826

023154782X

OCLC:

1041707367