| Excess Baggage: Leveling the Load and Changing the Workplace Contributor(s): Rosskam, Ellen (Author), Elling, Ray (Author) |
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ISBN: 0895033607 ISBN-13: 9780895033604 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $180.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2007 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Industrial Health & Safety - Psychology | Mental Health - Business & Economics | Human Resources & Personnel Management |
| Dewey: 363.119 |
| LCCN: 2006051663 |
| Series: Critical Approaches in the Health Social Sciences |
| Physical Information: 288 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Based on groundbreaking research on the working conditions of airport check-in workers in two countries, a previously unstudied category of predominantly women workers, Ellen Rosskam describes a form of work characterized as modern-day Taylorism. An occupation greatly affected by new forms of work organization and management practices-caught in the throes of rapid change due to international competition, alliances, mergers, and the application of cost-efficiency strategies-check-in work has been undermined in recent years by the adverse effects of liberalization and technological change.By peeling away the veneer of glamour associated with airport check-in work, Rosskam reveals how changes in work organization in this sector have de-skilled, disempowered, and ultimately demoralized workers. In Excess Baggage, weaving through the psychological distress, physical pain from musculoskeletal disorders, strain, and violence that check-in workers experience and describe in their own words, a picture emerges of a job perceived to be safe, clean, glamour girl work, but which is comparable to industrial workplaces that require heavy manual lifting, obligingly performed in skirts, dresses, and pretty little shoes. |