A01=Vanesa Ribas
african american
american worker
Author_Vanesa Ribas
Category=JBSL
Category=JHB
contemporary american slaughterhouse
corporate america
deportation threats
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnographic research
exploitation
factory
factory work
family separation
hard labor
immigrant workers
insider outsider status
labor
labor protection
labor studies
latina workers
latino workers
medical attention
migrant workers
minority workforce
native born americans
new south
racial tensions
slaughterhouse
struggles
united states of america
white dominance
workers
workers rights
Product details
- ISBN 9780520282957
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 08 Dec 2015
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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"How does one put into words the rage that workers feel when supervisors threaten to replace them with workers who will not go to the bathroom in the course of a fourteen-hour day of hard labor, even if it means wetting themselves on the line?" - From the Preface In this gutsy, eye-opening examination of the lives of workers in the New South, Vanesa Ribas, working alongside mostly Latino/a and native-born African American laborers for sixteen months, takes us inside the contemporary American slaughterhouse. Ribas, a native Spanish speaker, occupies an insider/outsider status there, enabling her to capture vividly the oppressive exploitation experienced by her fellow workers. She showcases the particular vulnerabilities faced by immigrant workers - a constant looming threat of deportation, reluctance to seek medical attention, and family separation - as she also illuminates how workers find connection and moments of pleasure during their grueling shifts. Bringing to the fore the words, ideas, and struggles of the workers themselves, On The Line underlines how deep racial tensions permeate the factory, as an overwhelmingly minority workforce is subject to white dominance.
Compulsively readable, this extraordinary ethnography makes a powerful case for greater labor protection, especially for our nation's most vulnerable workers.
Vanesa Ribas is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego.
