Emotional Labour in the
Nonprofit Social Services: An
Australian-Canadian
Exploration
Donna Baines
Labour Studies & Social Work
McMaster University
Emotional labour
►Arlie
Hochschild (1983)
Used to control & speed up service interactions
►Oppressive
in most service work
(Bolton & Boyd, 2005; Taylor & Tyler, 2000; Leidner, 1999; )
►Source
of meaning in care work
(Henderson, 2001; Boyd, 2000; Shuler and Sypher, 2000)
“My best experiences happened when clients
came back to show me that they had done
well, and to maybe laugh and cry about what
they’d been through and what we’d done
together.
They usually try to thank me for being
someone who cared about them and took the
time to get to know them and really listen. I
tell them I don’t want thanks, I have all the
thanks I need in just seeing them do so
well.”
Masculinised Model of
Emotional Labour
(Lewis, 2005; Bolton, 2005, Maconachie, 2005; Guy, Newman and Mastracci, 2008)
►prescriptive-
professional
► NPM
= tightly
quantified,
standardized
emotion
management
Managing your own and other people’s disappointment
► When
you deal with other people’s
emotional health and dreams all day, it is
a very intimate thing you carry around
with you, a very intimate bunch of
information and expectations.
► Not
being able to meet these
expectations, let alone your own, is
probably one of the most stressful things
around. It gets you at an intimate level.
Feminized Model of
Emotional Labour
► philanthropic-gift model
► open-ended,
unscripted,
relationship based
► resistance uses pre-
NPM, more participatory
processes of emotional
connection and mutual
participation
Resistance
► “getting
back and
getting by” (Nichols &
Armstrong, 1976)
► minor
infractions of
the rules
► open
advocacy for
change
(Burawoy, 1979; Friedman, 1977; LeeTreweek,1997)
► Social
Service
workers tend to
identify with agency
mission
► Target gov’t &
society, not just
employers
► Self exploit as
resistance (Baines, 2007,
2004; Smith, 2007)
“Most of us are here because we want to
work with people in not just in a way that
makes a difference, but in a different way.
We don’t want to just fill in reports and push
paper …
We want to work in a way that empowers
people and challenges systems that harm
people.
We want to organize with the community to
take control back, not just put band aids on
a few of the more obvious victims.”
Nonprofit Social Services
►Outside
of
market and
government
►Provides
range of
services
a
► Growing
convergence with
market, gov’t &
voluntary sector
 New Public Mgmt &
Performance Measures
 Standardizes, Speeds
Up
 Removes Discretion,
Activism & Collective
Forums
To this point:
► Social
service workers identify with
mission and social justice; NPM work
organization removes/limits these aspects
► Workers
find workplace meaning in
relationships with clients, communities
and each other (emotional labour)
► Workers
self exploit as resistance
What do they do to resist?
WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF PAID WORK
►
► encourage
.
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
clients to advocate for themselves even when it
involved risk to the worker
bend rules
look for ways to get clients all they are entitled to and more
do unpaid, volunteer work in their own agencies and others
organize service user groups
build coalitions
provide new services for free
use their unions as vehicles for social justice
(including: ending the war in Iraq, campaign for an end to
queer bashing, demanding care for homeless people,
challenging funding cuts and opposing sexism, racism and
homophobia, working to end poverty
Righting the balance
between work and mission
►Doing
things they can no longer do on
the job (or never could)
► Regaining autonomy, control,
constructing their own meanings
►Target their employers as well as larger
uncaring society
Convergence v. Particularity
► Managerial
models in ► Resistance is unique to
private and nonprofit logics and ideology of
sectors
the sector
(Evans and Shields, 2002;
Considine, 2002; Baines,
2004, 2006; Cunningham,2008)
To care
► To participate with
others (collectivity)
► To create and sustain
relationships
► To make social justice
► To undertake unpaid
work when they choose
► To push the boundaries
of social unions
►
Resistance
► Is
replete with
emotional labour
because workers want
it that way
► More than a
feminized gift-model
► A gift-solidarity model
 Reciprocity
 Mutual participation