 | Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart Subjects: Wal-Mart (Firm) -- Employees; Discount houses (Retail trade) -- United States -- Management -- Case studies; Retail trade -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States; Corporations -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States; Reich (Selling Our Soul: The Commodification of Hospital Care in the United States) and Bearman (Doormen), both Columbia professors, recount the results of their work with the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) in this fascinating and entertaining examination of the retail giant. Over the course of their "Summer of Respect," the authors sent young researchers to Walmart stores across the country to conduct in-depth interviews with Walmart employees and support OUR Walmart in labor organizing. Along with presenting interview data and field observations, the authors analyze Walmart employees' online comments and anonymous reviews of the company on employer ratings website Glassdoor, conduct a survey, and perform fMRI scans on their student researchers to see whether their levels of trust in each other changed after their summer working together. Their account of the results is accessible and, at times, surprisingly page-turning. They define Walmartism as a "control regime" that "combines the arbitrary authority of managers with a deeply penetrative system of observation and measurement assembled by linking cameras to scanners to customers" and point out that the workers speak more of a desire for respect than about wanting specific financial improvements. The use of interview excerpts amplifies the voices of low-wage workers not often heard in public discourse. This is an insightful examination of the inner workings of the "country's largest corporate employer." (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Reich Adam : Adam Reich (Ph.D. UC Berkeley) is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of Selling Our Souls: The Commodification of Hospital Care in the United States (Princeton, 2014) With God on Our Side: The Struggle for Worker's Rights in a Catholic Hospital (Cornell, 2012), and Hidden Truth: The Young Men Navigating Lives in and Out of Juvenile Prison (California, 2010).Bearman Peter : Peter Bearman (Ph.D. Harvard University) is the Jonathan R. Cole Professor of the Social Sciences, Director of INCITE, Director of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences, and the Director of the Mellon Training Program in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Columbia University, the Centennial Professor of Methodology and Sociology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Doormen (Chicago, 2005) and the co-editor of The Middle Range Series for Columbia University Press.Adam Reich is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of Hidden Truth: The Young Men Navigating Lives in and out of Juvenile Prison (2010); With God on Our Side: The Struggle for Workers' Rights in a Catholic Hospital (2012); and Selling Our Souls: The Commodification of Hospital Care in the United States (2014). |
