You don’t look sick: Invisible disability, moral injury, and organisational betrayal on the retail front-line

Abstract

This article examines how the gap between invisible impairment and formal recognition shapes employment experiences. We draw on Jordan’s account as a front-line retail worker in Germany living with a chronic kidney condition that significantly affects work capacity but falls below the threshold for disability classification under the German Sozialgesetzbuch IX (SGB IX). Jordan’s testimony reveals a workplace where support depends on individual managers rather than institutional structures, and where the absence of formal classification renders suffering invisible to the systems designed to address it. We argue that the harm described is best understood as moral injury. Drawing on literature on invisible disability and on moral injury, we demonstrate how classification thresholds, combined with unsupportive employer care, produce institutional betrayal that erodes both worker well-being and organisational attachment.