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.
Highlights
Logistics is the art of moving things for specific purposes such as trade, and above all war
Labour & globalisation Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2019 of contemporary logistics have been in use for some time, the last two or three decades have seen a ‘logistics revolution’ in supply chain organisation across the world (Bonacich & Wilson, 2008:3–22)
It asserts the classical and Marxist view that capitalist enterprises large and small use prices and costs, as well as other tactics, as aggressive weapons in the competitive war for profits. This approach helps to illustrate the economic dynamics behind the well-known fact of supply chain vulnerability to worker action as well as the drive toward work intensification and decreasing real wages up and down the supply chain that can motivate such action. It is not the ‘monopoly’ or ‘oligopoly’ position of large ultimate buyers in the supply chain, the ‘power regimes’ discussed below, such as Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon or General Motors, Ford and Toyota, that explains their aggressive behaviour toward their suppliers, but precisely the intense competition between them characterised by the fight for market share and value appropriation in the supply chain
Summary
Logistics is the art of moving things for specific purposes such as trade, and above all war. Labour & globalisation Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2019 of contemporary logistics have been in use for some time, the last two or three decades have seen a ‘logistics revolution’ in supply chain organisation across the world (Bonacich & Wilson, 2008:3–22). The dollar value of freight moved within the USA doubled from 1998 to 2017 (US Department of Transportation, 2004:9, 2017:2–2). Logistics had been transformed in ways that have disoriented both workers and trade union leaders through new technology, suburban relocation and the use of precarious forms of employment, while at the same time opening up new possibilities for the exercise of workers’ power on the job
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