Dignity Under Threat

What can account for the high rates of stress related illnesses among service sector workers, particularly those employed at the bottom of organizational hierarchies? By interviewing a wide range of workers from hospital cleaners, to call center workers and managers, Brooker builds an explanation based on workers' experiences and argues that dignity is a central link between the work environment and workers' experiences of stress. When asked to describe particularly stressful events, sometimes workers talked about being ignored, insulted or bullied. Other times, workers spoke of their difficulty in receiving any type of recognition for the work that they do. Brooker argues that these descriptions share common themes. They are all situations in which workers experience a threat to their dignity. In this book, the process by which workers achieve dignity through work is elucidated, and the situations in which workers feel that their dignity is being affronted are described. Drawing on various sociological theories of power, Brooker argues that workers with low power in organizations are most likely to experience threats to dignity at work.