A Hidden Workforce

A practical guide packed with examples of organizations that have successfully tapped into the hidden talents of their workforce. Managers will learn to recognize and mine some key, fundamental leadership traits that are essential for a competitive business.

Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate 'disposable' labour force, enduring gruelling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research, it provides the reader with a gendered account of the role of women migrant workers in Thailand's factories and interrogates the ways in which they manage their families and their futures.

Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate 'disposable' labour force, enduring gruelling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research, it provides the reader with a gendered account of the role of women migrant workers in Thailand's factories and interrogates the ways in which they manage their families and their futures.

The book presents a critical framework for assessing whether organisational practice and function reinforces unseen potential differences amongst individuals in the workplace. It offers a comprehensive understanding and awareness of managerial and organisational practices that perpetuate social exclusion and discrimination towards individuals in the workplace. The book draws together themes of non-declared medical or physical conditions, voluntary and involuntary disclosure of difference, dietary requirements, lifestyle, organisational engagement and cognitive bias. As a result, the book provides a unique blend of scholarly and professional research, and brings those who have been affected by social stigmas and discrimination in the workplace to the fore. Hidden Inequalities in the Workplace also offers practical and strategic insights for practitioners, students and policy-makers, and delves the strategic nature of policy intervention and thought-provoking dialogue

"Demographic and technological trends have yielded new forms of work that are increasingly more precarious, globalized, and brand centered. Some of these shifts have led to a marked decrease in the visibility of work or workers. This edited collection examines situations in which technology and employment practices hide labor within the formal paid labor market, with implications for workplace activism, social policy, and law. In some cases, technological platforms, space, and temporality hide workers and sometimes obscure their tasks as well. In other situations, workers may be highly visible--indeed, the employer may rely upon the workers' aesthetics to market the branded product--but their aesthetic labor is not seen as work. In still other cases, the work occurs within a social interaction and appears as leisure--a voluntary or chosen activity--rather than as work. Alternatively, the workers themselves may be conceptualized as consumers rather than as workers. Crossing the occupational hierarchy and spectrum from high- to low-waged work, from professional to manual labor, and from production to service labor, the authors argue for a broader understanding of labor in the contemporary era. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates perspectives from law, sociology, and industrial/labor relations"--Provided by publisher.

This book combines a case study of industrial homework in the electronics industry with a world-systems approach to understanding the role of home-based work in economic development. It spans the period from the nineteenth-century origins of industrial homework to the important role played by home-based work in current strategies of economic restructuring in manufacturing and service industries. The author draws a clear distinction between industrial homework and earlier forms of domestic labor, such as the putting-out system. She also clarifies the important differences between various forms of contemporary home-based work: waged homework in industrial and service occupations, professional telecommuting, home-based self-employment. Moving from the lives of homeworkers themselves to macro-level analyses, Dangler's case study provides a vantage point from which to examine theories of world economic development, theories of labor market segmentation, and recent analyses of the importance of informal sector activities in the modern economy.

Cluckie explores the growth and development of Art Embroidery in Britain circa 1870-1890, giving special consideration to the support received from the art establishment in designing for and educating embroiderers. This thesis demonstrates the hidden workforce's contribution to the British economy.