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Labor Studies Journal 28.3 (2003) 110-111



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Beyond the Bottom Line: The Search for Dignity at Work. By Paula M. Rayman. New York. Palgrave, 2001. 220pp. $26.95 hardback.

In 1958, Paula Rayman's father became unemployed. Her family, which had enjoyed a life of relative financial comfort on Manhattan's Upper West Side, slid into poverty with her mother forced into the unexpected role of family provider. Her father lived out his years struggling with the shame and worry of his transition from successful, self-employed businessman to unemployed low-wage worker. Forty years later, in 1998, Rayman's own college-age daughter asked her working mother: "Can you work and have a life?" These two experiences bracket Rayman's thoughtful and hopeful analysis of whether it is possible to hold on to our essential human dignity while participating as workers in today's increasingly global and competitive capitalist economy.

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden provide Rayman's first case study as she focuses on the key factors that allow people to have dignity while working. Through the Genesis story of the first "working family" and by looking at stories from other professions (a lawyer, a homecare worker, an accountant, and a domestic worker) as well as reviewing ideas on human dignity from generations of philosophers, Rayman identifies three "pillars" of dignity at work. For her, these are: to be able to gain a livelihood for oneself and one's family, to have self-respect on the job, and to work in a way that is socially responsible or leaves room for civic contributions outside work. Rayman then goes on to provide in-depth illustrations of how economic and social changes in the United States threaten these pillars of dignity on the job.

Rayman gives two detailed case studies from industries exemplifying some of the challenges facing the dignity of U.S. workers today: a selection of small biotech start-up companies and the megalithic Fleet Bank, with billions of dollars in assets. In the biotech case, Rayman participated in surveying how workers dealt with their rapidly changing work environments. Despite the unstable nature of the industry and their concerns for their future financial security, the biotech workers found dignity on the job through their reliance on and pride in their highly marketable skills. They also felt they had the respect of their colleagues and communities and were making a difference in fighting disease.

At Fleet Bank, Rayman had the good fortune to be involved directly in an experiment allowing a handful of Fleet employees more flexibility in meeting their work and family obligations. Although very few employees were actually affected, they did report higher productivity and greater [End Page 110] feelings of respect on the job because they were directly involved in planning and implementing more flexible work policies.

However, when Rayman gives us what she sees as "signs of hope" for dignity at work, the examples she gives are largely not from either of these case studies, nor from similar industries. Instead, she sees hope for a different future in the "voices of young Americans" who are outspoken in wanting different personal and working lives from those of their parents and grandparents. She also sees hope in institutional structures and policies that support human dignity on the job. It is a striking distinction that the majority of her hopeful examples come from unionized workplaces, ranging from homecare workers in Los Angeles County to the huge multi-national Norwegian company Norsk Hydro.

While Rayman's examples are certainly hopeful, they do lead us to wonder how hopeful our overall situation is in an economy where few workers have skills as portable as those in biotech, where few CEOs are as enlightened as the CEO of Fleet Bank, where most of our world's resources are concentrated in the hands of a few and where only 14% of our nation's workforce is organized. The voices of working people in this book ring loud and clear as they describe the daily difficulties of...

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