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      Call for Papers: Hierarchies of domesticity – spatial and social boundaries. Deadline for submissions is 30th September, 2024. Full details can be read here.

      Articles to be no longer than 6,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography) and submitted in two forms: an anonymised version in which all references to the authors’ institution and publications are omitted; and a full version including the authors’ titles and institutional affiliations. For complete instructions on style, formatting, etc., please consult: https://www.plutojournals.com/wp-content/uploads/WOLG-Instructions-for-Authors2023.pdf 

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      Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

      Volume 13, Issue 1
       
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      Labour and the contradictory logic of logistics

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            Abstract

            Since the early 1980s, the way in which goods and materials are exchanged and moved has changed in what has been called the ‘logistics revolution'. In the USA, the value of goods moved as freight has doubled since the late 1990s, the number of warehouses has grown by two-and-a-half times, while the amount carried by intermodal transport has grown by five times over these years. This article will argue that the system of logistics that has taken shape in the last two or three decades is deeply affected by contradictions inherent in capitalism that magnify the potential power of labour to disrupt supply chains. Among these are: the tension between the desire for the seamless movement of goods and the disruptive reality of competition and the fight for value appropriation up and down the supply chain; the push by both retailers and manufacturers for ever faster delivery of goods to market; the burden of high fixed costs that underlie the structure of contemporary logistics; and the growth of huge ‘logistics clusters’ concentrating tens of thousands of manual workers in important metropolitan areas. It will be argued that each of these contradictions renders the firms in these logistics networks highly vulnerable to worker actions. While such actions have been relatively rare so far, community-based pre-union organising in some major clusters, such as Chicago, is laying the basis for a future upsurge in worker organisation.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50010512
            Journal ID (jcode): workorgalaboglob
            Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation
            Publisher: Pluto Journals
            ISSN: 1745-641X
            ISSN: 1745-6428
            Publication date (Print): 1 April 2019
            Volume: 13
            Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.issue-1 )
            Pages: 79-95
            Article
            Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.13.1.0079
            DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.1.0079
            SO-VID: 2da33795-d622-48ca-9184-340318245d4a
            Copyright © © Kim Moody, 2019
            License:

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Custom metadata
            lang eng

            ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics
            Keywords: risk management,labour,competition,warehouse,supply chain,value appropriation,value chain,logistics,logistics clusters

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