How Does Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Work In Factory Jobs?

This great article from Colorlines, on the indignities and injustices of production in the US industrial food sector, got me thinking about an essay in The Engaged Buddhist Reader (edited by Arnold Kotler, (c) 1996) called Mindfulness and Mastery In the Workplace. Written by Saki F. Santorelli, it "emerged out of a conversation initiated by Thich Nhat Hanh following the conclusion of a five-day mindfulness retreat in 1987." Santorelli tells powerful stories about a physician and a team of receptionists learning to transform their consciousness around stress at work; then he offers generalized guidance for practicing mindfulness at work.

9. Use your breaks to truly relax rather than simply "pausing." For instance, instead of having coffee, a cigarette, or reading, try taking a short walk -- or sitting at your desk and renewing yourself.10. For lunch, try changing your environment. This can be helpful.11. Try closing your door (if you have one) and take some time to consciously relax.12. Decide to stop for one to three minutes every hour during the workday. Become aware of your breathing and bodily sensations, allowing the mind to settle in as a time to regroup and recoup.

Advice and teachings on how to integrate dhamma practice into our everyday lives are clearly precious and necessary. Kind of the whole point of engaged Buddhism, as I understand it! Mindfulness is incredibly useful to me, and I'm thankful for reminders to practice while at work. On the other hand, it makes me uneasy when there's no mention of systematic workplace exploitation, speed-up, and alienation, let alone guidance on how to practice mindfulness while resisting these. And the assumption seems to be professional or white-collar jobs, rather than, say, a meat-packing plant.Structural workplace stressors (including understaffing, refusal to fix broken machinery, or unhealthy / inconsistent schedules and work hours) can be especially harsh and intense for "low-skill" laborers like Colorlines interviewee and factory worker Uylanda — keeping her harried, rushed, and on-guard against sexist attacks.

Uylanda: I went to work sick; I got sick at work. If you have kids to take care of, they don’t care. Get to work, then work work work, that’s all they care about. You could go to work today, if you’re supposed to get off at 2 p.m., but you don’t get off till 5 p.m. I’m not saying that women should have better treatment, but women have more stuff to take care of. If women have to take their kids to the doctor, they shouldn’t be fired. If you’re sick, stay at home, and don’t spread it to everyone at the warehouse.We had two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute one for lunch. But it took 5 minutes just to get to the warehouse door, so that made your break shorter. In the midst of working, I had a bladder infection, I was taking pills so I had to go to the bathroom a lot. But they didn’t allow me [to go to the bathroom], so that’s how I got sick.Women are harassed in the warehouse. One went to the police because her boss sexually harassed her, but they put criminal charges on her because she opened her mouth on the boss! You get penalized if you report things like that. I tried to report mine and got told “Stop being so sensitive. Stop being a woman. Stop telling everything.” But what are you supposed to do? I got locked in trailers, people told me to reach for boxes at the top so they can check you out, people whistle when you walk by. This happened daily. But when I said something, they told me I was being sensitive, because I was the only woman there.

Again, these kinds of conditions are not merely attributable to a "bad apple" of a boss. As Uylanda observes, they stem from the economic imperatives at play: “The bosses don’t care, because they just want to get more work done."I can't speak from the experience of working in a factory. But one recent job of mine presented serious challenges for me on the mindfulness tip, because of the precarity of the job itself, and the way it was set up to maximize profits at the expense of workers' mental health. I was writing copy for an online marketing company, and would have to wait, along with all the other far-flung freelance writers huddled over their laptops, for new assignments to come through the cue. Problem was, we were all paid by the piece, not by the hour, and often the cue would run dry: not enough work assignments for all of us. So there we all were, refreshing the assignments page on our computers over and over, sometimes for multiple hours, trying to beat out all the other invisible co-workers and be the first to claim the next write-up.Very challenging place to be mindful: staring, stressed out, at a screen. Remaining aware — keenly aware — of the unpaid hours my fellow freelancers and I spent waiting for assignments. Meanwhile, the bosses made literally billions of dollars off of our creative labor.Now I'm not saying that just because bosses and management put the squeeze on workers, mindfulness at work (or driving to work, or coming home from work) is therefore impossible, or should be dismissed as some kind of white-collar privilege. It's just that when we're discussing a topic like mindfulness at work, I would love to see more attention paid to the grim but important realities of class war, racism, ableism, and sexism, transphobia, etc. in the workplace (which, of course, can arise in jobs of all skill levels, but tend to be worst in low-skill, low-wage labor). Isn't this an aspect of reality that deserves nuanced attention from teachers of mindfulness?Furthermore, I would love to see guidance for dharma practice in the process of workplace resistance and organizing. For me, this is one of the most moving parts of Uylanda's testimony, where the power of compassionate listening shines through:

Uylonda: I’ve been an organizer with the Warehouse Workers for Justice for a year now. It’s something that I’d never thought I’d do. I get to cry and laugh, I get to be me and nobody looks at me funny. I get to tell my story and tears roll. Before, I’d tell my story and people would laugh. Now, people listen and some tears roll with me. Now, people cry together and laugh together."

As the techniques of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) rise in popularity, how can we use them not only when performing work, but also when banding together at work?I'd love to hear from readers on this one.✺ In what ways has mindfulness, dharma, or MBSR helped you in your work life? How does that relate to the specific type of work you do?✺ Have you heard MBSR-on-the-job frameworks that address the systematic oppressions and exploitations of work?✺ Are you concerned at all that MBSR may act as a pallative? In what ways, if any, do you feel optimistic about its role in spreading and sharing the dharma?Link thanks goes to Nathan Thompson of engaged Buddhist blog Dangerous Harvests!*   *   *[Top Photo: Uylonda Dickerson (L) and Hnin Wai Hnin (R), interviewed for Colorlines.]