Unfree shipping: the racialisation of logistics labour

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.1.0096
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Date: 01 April 2019
• Pages: 96-113
• Author: Jake Alimahomed-Wilson
• Subject Matter: racialisation of labour,logistics,unions,low-wage work,labour subcontracting,supply chains,warehousing,trucking,ports,migrant and immigrant workers

96 Work organisation, labour & globalisation Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2019

Unfree shipping:

the racialisation of logistics labour

Jake Alimahomed-Wilson

Jake Alimahomed-Wilson is Professor of Sociology at

California State University, Long Beach, California, USA.

ABSTRACT

The logistics revolution has transformed the ways that goods are produced and

transported around the world, producing numerous deleterious outcomes for

workers, including the deterioration of wages and labour standards, attacks on

unions, and the increase of precarious contingent labour conditions. A related,

yet underexplored, process related to the logistics revolution has been the role

of racialisation in further amplifying the deterioration of working conditions

across the global supply chain. In this context, this article explores how the

racialisation of labour impacts logistics workers in the greater Los Angeles

metropolitan region. Drawing on case studies of low-wage, non-union Latinx

workers in the warehouse and port trucking industries of Southern California, I

argue that racialisation has accelerated the negative labour impacts related to

the logistics revolution across these sectors.

KEY WORDS

racialisation of labour, logistics, unions, low-wage work, labour subcontracting,

supply chains, warehousing, trucking, ports, migrant and immigrant workers

Introduction

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is both the fastest growing corporation in

the USA and the first public company to have reached a US$1 trillion market cap. A

key component behind Amazon’s increasing power in the global economy is its

mastery of the logistical supply chain. The rise of Amazon, and other major retailers

such as Walmart (the largest private company in the world) is indicative of a broader

shift in global capitalism; namely, the ‘logistics revolution’, or the transformation in

the way goods are produced and transported around the world, which has increased

retail power in today’s global ‘just-in-time’ economy (Bonacich & Wilson, 2008).

This shift, coupled with neoliberal economic policies and austerity measures, has

produced deleterious consequences for working-class people across numerous

Work organisation, labour & globalisation Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2019 97

industries, including the global logistics and warehouse industries (Alimahomed-

Wilson & Ness, 2018).

The logistics revolution has propelled a shift in the global economy from the

traditional mass production model to the current neoliberal flexible specialisation

production system. A key innovation in the movement of goods and trade throughout

the global shipping industry was the development of containerisation, which allowed

for intermodal transportation of goods (i.e. the movement of goods between ship, rail

and truck without ever having to unload or reload the cargo) (Alimahomed-Wilson &

Potiker, 2017). Driven by a neoliberal supply chain management paradigm which

promotes the efficient movement of goods (capital) through anti-worker policies and

attacks on unions, the logistics revolution has contributed to an overall weakening of

working-class power in the global economy. In addition, the normalisation of precarity,

including within previously unionised logistics sectors, coupled with growing rates of

contingent labour relations and casualisation, underemployment and misclassified

employment statuses have become common throughout the global logistics industry. A

related, yet underexplored, process connected to the logistics revolution has been the

role of racialisation in further amplifying the deterioration of labour conditions. In this

context, this article explores the ways that racialisation intensifies the labour

exploitation process for logistics workers in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan

region’s supply chain. Drawing on case studies of low-wage, non-union Latinx1 workers

in the warehouse and port trucking sectors in Southern California, it analyses how

racialisation has accelerated the negative labour conditions generally associated with

the logistics revolution across these sectors.

Logistics and the transformation of Southern California’s

supply chain

In 2018, California surpassed the United Kingdom to become the fifth largest economy

in the world.2 Without a doubt, the logistics-driven economic transformation of the

greater Los Angeles metropolitan region, which includes the largest port complex in the

USA, has played a key role in California’s economic growth (Bonacich & Wilson, 2008).

While the changes associated with the logistics revolution transformed the economic

landscape throughout much of the world, including the USA, Southern California

serves as the preeminent US region where these changes have taken hold most firmly.

Southern California’s logistics industry, which employs over 600,000 logistics workers,

generates approximately US$224.6 billion dollars of economic output annually, and on

any given day, 1.6 million tons of goods travel throughout the region across various

modes of transportation (Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, 2017).

1 ‘Latinx’ (a gender neutral or non-binary alternative to ‘Latino/a’) refers to people of Latin American origin

or descent. The majority of Latinx workers analysed in this case study are of Mexican origin or descent; in the

Southern California port trucking sector in particular, workers of El Salvadoran origin or descent comprise a

significant proportion in this sector.

2 http://fortune.com/2018/05/05/california-fifth-biggest-economy-passes-united-kingdom/. Accessed 2

November 2018.