Roughness, transgression, burden, and degradation: shapes of workplace harassment in Chilean copper mining

Abstract

Workplace harassment is a phenomenon that affects workers across the world. According to that, this study pretends to analyze the shapes of workplace harassment in copper mining in Chile. Aim: To analyze the shapes of workplace harassment from the experiences of copper mining workers and its entailment with the work characteristics of the sector. Method: Qualitative inquiry with a narrative design, conducted by Psychodynamic of work’s theory. Outcomes: 20 semi-structured interviews were carried out. Before the thematic analysis, fourth themes emerged related to the shapes of workplace harassment: 1) Disciplining the productive subjectivity, 2) Overwhelming the living labor, 3) Inciting the violation of prescriptive security, 4) Rejecting and degrading the female workforce. Discussion: The organization of work presents elements that promote the suffering of workers, such as: resorting to roughness due to the demands of work, promoting the devaluation of the human factor, the restriction of moral limits through paradoxical actions or the primacy of virility as a way of hostile competition against the women miners.