Originally published here.

The inclusion of people with disabilities into the labour market is an endeavour with big challenges. Currently,internationally, one can affirm that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is at least twice as high asfor those who have no disability. In the wake of the Declar ation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the promotion of inclusive education in educational systems, the enhancement of labour market participation isanother important step to social participation and economic self-sustainability of people with disabilities, asoutlined in article of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

However, the question of training of people with disabilities remains an important issue in the advancement oftheir employment. The ableist work environment in most community employment turns work into a challenge for people with disabilities, in terms of flexibility and aesthetics (Wilton, 2004). How to prepare people withdisabilities for this environment? How to accommodate the specific challenges they are facing in the labour market?Does school give them a thorough preparation for those challenges? What does it mean to be “ready for work andemployment”? How do the people with disabilities themselves experience those challenges? The present studywill draw on ethnographic material collected in a training business for people with disabilities. Using theframework of sociology of emotions (Hochschild, 1979; Bolton & Boyd, 2003; Wilton, 2008), the article willshow the elements going beyond what we consider the necessary formal skills to obtain and retain employment ina capitalist environment.

The five young men introduced in this article stand for several forms of emotional labour required in customerservice in our contemporary society. It reveals the strong normative environment that sets the stage for everyonewho wants to participate in the labour market. The most successful participants are those who are able to jugglewith the different types of emotion management, and are also able to give the “little extra” (Bolton & Boyd, 2003)to coworkers, supervisors and customers. It is obvious that this article shows the need of young people withdisability to adapt to this work environment, but has not drawn a lot of attention to the need of accommodating the person with disabilities in the workplace. More than school culture, the workplace culture is deeply related to theeconomic capitalist structure, and excludes people who are deviant from its normative expectations.“Accommodation constitutes a challenge to the logic of contemporary capitalist economies, where flexibility isfirst and foremost a privilege of capital” (Wilton, 2004, p. 423). Those who do not possess this flexibility mightquickly be recognized as “problem or fragile workers” (Wilton, 2004). Others might find themselves alienated bythe normative expectations of the workplace. People with disabilities and the expectations they face foremployment make it obvious how much implicit emotional labour is expected from all of us. It questions the waythe workplace has been organized and if there are ways to change and adapt the workplace to people’s needs.On the other side, the Dollarstore is very realistic about what is currently needed to retain employment in the business world. Three of the five young men have not been able to master the emotion management required bythe store. James keeps the precarious jobs he had before and Peter and Jonathan will return to community collegeand enrol in other programmes. It shows that, at this point, these young men have alternatives and that they mightexplore other options that do not require the same emotion management as retail service. This does notnecessarily signify a failure of these young men, as the store has allowed them to recognize if retail is a validoption for their future employment. Two out of the five (Neil and Daniel) have learned the necessary feeling rulesin order to move on into paid employment. They had the time and the space to discover what it takes to be in retail.This, on the other hand, means that customers of the store have to be ready to offer philanthropic emotionmanagement: accepting that an employee needs longer to do the cash register, that a clerk might not be as polite asexpected, that their physical appearance might not meet their aesthetic expectations… A survey showed that 90%of the participating customers know that the store is a training business, and that they anticipate a slower pace andsome extra help necessary for the employees.Thus, if this analysis has demonstrated the dis-abling side of the service industry, it also reveals the en-ablingculture of a training business, which helps some youth with disabilities to make a successful transition into theworkplace. It allows them to learn new forms of emotion management that they could not acquire during their previous socialization and schooling career and that they need to participate in the labour market. We can criticizecapitalistic economic systems, but Goffman’s ‘juggler’ also implies the ability to participate in it if needed ordesired. To make feeling rules obvious and use them to their own advantage gives people with disabilities morealternatives and the agency to accept them or not. School and job training need to take this into account and makeit more explicit in their educational goals.

You can read the complete article here.