The purpose of this paper is to show how organizational practices and workplace culture can lead to humiliating experiences and situations of harassment at work. The discussion is based on interviews conducted in 2007 involving 20 workers from three shoe industries located in Ceará (Brasil). The content analysis indicate that, although humiliation and harassment occur as individual acts of violence perpetrated by persons invested with power and authority in these industries, both transcend the limits of interpersonal relationships and are related to organizational management policies aiming at productivity goals. These policies determine how and how much should be produced at the same time that shape the interpersonal relations within factories.
shoe industry workers; workers' health; workers' mental health; organizational practices; workplace bullying