Book Review: Dignity, respect and the cultures of work

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to attend a session at a conference in Youngstown, Ohio, where a recently redundant steelworker talked with great eloquence about his former working life. He related the story of his first job while still a schoolboy collecting baseballs at his local diamond. One day his father was talking to the owner when the boy’s boss ordered him about with a wag of a finger. The boy’s father, a steelworker himself, took the boy home and never let him collect balls again. The story for the teller illustrated the interlinked qualities of dignity and respect at work. His father recognized in the other man’s gesture a disrespect for his son’s labour. The narrator spoke of the profound effect of this event on his working life and the way he subsequently viewed his treatment at work.