From Periphery to the Frontlines: Socio-Spatial Transformations in Logistics Labor

Sajid Khurram, University of Illinois

Marx provocatively argued that the iron laws of capitalist development would centralize the working-class into productive firms operating on the basis of economies of scale. Decades of neoliberal restructuring—labor fissuring, offshoring, and de-industrialization—brought some to wholly reject this claim and consequently minimize the structural capacities of labor as a historical agent of social change. While this description of fragmentation and atomization is still partially correct, centripetal tendencies are transforming the structural composition of the working class. The logistics industry, which has undergone remarkable growth despite chronic stagnation and low productivity of the world-capitalist economy, has spearheaded this structural transformation. As global capitalism increasingly relies on tightly knit commodity chains running on Just-in-Time rhythms, logistics hubs have rapidly spread around the world. In the United States, the largest consumer market in the world, truly grandiose, sprawling logistics corridors boasting archipelagos of warehouses and distribution centers can be found in California, Chicago, and New York-New Jersey. Warehouses are highly automated, behemoth structures which can span over a dozen football fields and require mobilizing huge pools of cheap labor. As the hyper-mobility of capital is largely occluded by the depth of sunk investments, as well as greater reliance on a centralized and large workforce, global supply chains are much more vulnerable to strategic and concentrated disruptions in the circulation of value. In other words, the concentration and centralization of capital in the sphere of circulation is reconfiguring the terrain of class struggle. The confluence of these processes—investment into fixed capital, the importance of Just-in-Time flows, and the concentration and centralization of capital—has profoundly strengthened the capacities of the warehouse worker. Given their immense raw structural power, they will likely play a central role in resurgent labor movements.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 219. Domination through Administration