Lay vs. Legal Conceptions of Justice at the Workplace

• In Event: 160 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Paper Session. Labor and Inequality

Abstract

Law and society scholars have also long examined the disjuncture between the justice afforded by formal law, and the everyday perceptions of justice on the ground. This paper examines this gap through follow-up interviews with low-wage workers who have opted to mobilize their workplace rights. Specifically, I assess how claimants construct an analysis of fairness, and how these experiences either empower workers or demobilize workers. I identify three main stages in the claims process where workers’ evaluate their position within the rights enforcement regime. In the first, aggrieved workers evaluate whether they fall within the realm of jurisdictional protection, if they can establish a claim with the facts at hand, and whether they can or want to move forward with a formal claim. During this stage, claimants weigh not only their desire for retribution and restitution, but also the real and opportunity costs that engaging in legal mobilization requires. Through an initial survey of 470 low-wage workers and 100 follow-up interviews, as well as a long-term ethnography of the workers’ compensation system, I argue that for many, justice is not only predicated on legal definitions of success.

Author

• Shannon Marie Gleeson, University of California-Santa Cruz