Class, Control, and Relational Indignity

Abstract

This article investigates how complex combinations of control contribute to class variations in the experience of work through their impacts on relational aspects of workplace dignity. Analysis of content-coded data on 154 work groups suggests that control structures vary by class and have significant implications for levels of abuse and shame, but exert little direct impact on hostility toward management or coworker conflict. Abusive treatment rooted in coercion, however, generates hostility toward management and intensifies feelings of shame associated with coercive control. Contrary to expectations, a pattern of abuse does not tend to generate coworker conflict. Reimmersion in the case studies suggests that when it does, the cause is often favoritism—a correlate of abuse.