Publication details
Tichá dřina : dělnictví a třída v továrně Baťa
| Title in English | Silent toil : Working classness and class in a Bata factory |
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Monograph |
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| Description | Based on ethnographic research conducted at a Bata factory, the book focuses on contemporary working classness. Class inequality and class consciousness are examined from a perspective established by Goffman (an emphasis on everyday and ordinary interactions) and Bourdieu (the habitual dimension of class). Class and working classness are strongly associated with the notion of valuation. A direct type of valuation is the salary, which is set very low for workers in the Czech Republic. To be a worker, then, is to be unappreciated, to be (under)valued within the schemes of the educational system, and later in the labor market, as one who stands at the bottom. Pride in work is not based on the amount of salary but rather on the ability to keep and perform the job over the long term. Having a job is a value in itself; it involves the ability to endure drudgery and keep up the pace of work. Last but not least, working classness is also a habit of discomfort, of pain. The fact that work is not primarily performed through words or verbal communication allows for the self-perception of workers as authentic and genuine. In this way, they fit into the company's expectations about them. That is, they are heartfelt people fully committed to their work. The ethos of hard work and the valuing of collectivity transform the factory into a place of mutual discipline. The vaunted collective also functions as a tool to increase work efficiency. People work in the synchronicity of individual activities, correcting and adjusting each other. This constant comparison makes the factory a living organism with a fragile network of hierarchical relationships embodied in each worker. |
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