Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain (Wildcat: Workers' Movements and Global Capitalism) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745337244 ISBN 13: 9780745337241

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Global capitalism is a precarious system. Relying on the steady flow of goods across the world, trans-national companies such as Wal-Mart and Amazon depend on the work of millions in docks, warehouses and logistics centres to keep their goods moving. This is the global supply chain, and, if the chain is broken, capitalism grinds to a halt. This book looks at case studies across the world to uncover a network of resistance by these workers who, despite their importance, often face vast exploitation and economic violence. Experiencing first hand wildcat strikes, organised blockades and boycotts, the authors explore a diverse range of case studies, from South China dockworkers to the transformation of the port of Piraeus in Greece, and from the Southern California logistics sector, to dock and logistical workers in Chile and unions in Turkey.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jake Alimahomed-Wilson is associate professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach and the author of Solidarity Forever?: Race, Gender, and Unionism in the Ports of Southern California. Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at the City University of New York and the author of several books, including Southern Insurgency, also published by Pluto.

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Choke Points

Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain

By Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, Immanuel Ness

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2018 Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-3724-1

Contents

Introduction: Forging Workers' Resistance Across the Global Supply Chain Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness, 1, 
PART I Building Labor Power and Solidarity Across the World's Choke Points, 17, 
1 Labor and Social Movements' Strategic Usage of the Global Commodity Chain Structure Elizabeth A. Sowers, Paul S. Ciccantell, and David A. Smith, 19, 
2 Across the Chain: Labor and Conflicts in the European Maritime Logistics Sector Andrea Bottalico, 35, 
3 Durban Dockers, Labor Internationalism, and Pan-Africanism Peter Cole, 50, 
PART II Disruptions: Logistics Workers Resisting Exploitation, 65, 
4 Worker Militancy and Strikes in China's Docks Bai Ruixue and Au Loong Yu, 67, 
5 "Work Hard, Make History": Oppression and Resistance in Inland Southern California's Warehouse and Distribution Industry Ellen Reese and Jason Struna, 81, 
6 Stop Treating Us Like Dogs! Workers Organizing Resistance at Amazon in Poland Amazon workers and supporters, 96, 
7 Decolonizing Logistics: Palestinian Truckers on the Occupied Supply Chain Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Spencer Louis Potiker, 110, 
PART III Neoliberalism and the Global Transformation of Ports, 127, 
8 Decoding the Transition in the Ports of Mumbai Johnson Abhishek Minz, 129, 
9 Back to Piraeus: Precarity for All! Dimitris Parsanoglou and Carolin Philipp, 145, 
10 Contested Logistics? Neoliberal Modernization and Resistance in the Port City of Valparaíso Jorge Budrovich Sáez and Hernán Cuevas Valenzuela, 162, 
11 Logistics Workers' Struggles in Turkey: Neoliberalism and Counterstrategies Cagatay Edgücan Sahin and Pekin Bengisu Tepe, 179, 
PART IV New Organizing Strategies for the Global Supply Chain, 197, 
12 "The Drivers Who Move This Country Can Also Stop It": The Struggle of Tanker Drivers in Indonesia Abu Mufakhir, Alfian Al'ayubby Pelu, and Fahmi Panimbang, 199, 
13 Lessons Learned from Eight Years of Experimental Organizing in Southern California's Logistics Sector Sheheryar Kaoosji, 214, 
14 Struggles and Grassroots Organizing in an Extended European Choke Point Carlotta Benvegnu and Niccolò Cuppini, 230, 
15 Beyond the Waterfront: Maintaining and Expanding Worker Power in the Maritime Supply Chain Peter Olney, 243, 
Contributor Biographies, 259, 
Index, 265, 

CHAPTER 1

Labor and Social Movements' Strategic Usage of the Global Commodity Chain Structure

Elizabeth A. Sowers, Paul S. Ciccantell, and David A. Smith

A key issue of this volume is whether there are identifiable "choke points" where workers and solidarity movements can gain the leverage necessary to disrupt the global capitalist supply chains. We are sociologists who work in a political economy of the world-system framework who conceptualize the world-economy as defined by the far-flung sinews of global commodity chains. We believe that by focusing on these chains — and particularly on key nodes related to logistics and transportation — we can gain great insight into the potential for resistance by labor and other social movements.

Global commodity chains (GCCs) are defined as a linked set of processes by which a series of inputs become tradable consumable goods: in the case of clothing this might involve "the manufacture of the cloth, the yarn, etc., the cultivation of the cotton, as well as the reproduction of the labor forces involved in these productive activities." These chains are very complex, socially embedded processes; in-depth understanding of them requires a knowledge of the details of the particular materials and transformation sequences. Gary Gereffi is a key scholar who developed the GCC framework — and if taken seriously, his approach opens up a new paradigm for conceptualizing global development and inequality, since it shifts our attention on "national" development to the activities at particular loci on these long global chains of production and exchange. This perspective emphasizes "on the ground" (or, in some cases, underground!) activities at particular places of extraction and production — and a key challenge for local actors is how to "upgrade" various processes to generate more surplus in particular places.

From a wider global angle, the GCC view seeks to understand "the unequal distribution of rewards among the various activities that constitute the single overarching division of labor defining and bounding the world economy." This is a critical approach, grounded in political economy (and neo-Marxist notions), which is rather different from the focus on "global value chains" (GVCs) and "supply chain management" (SCM) that seems to have subsumed much of the initial scholarly energy behind this field. Jennifer Bair provides an overview of the way that the GCC approach gradually seems to morph into a more "practical" business and managerial focus on value chains, which shares many characteristics with the SCM literature that is popular today, exemplified by a well-known journal, graduate degree programs, and so on.

In this chapter we argue that a "lengthened" GCC approach (which begins with extraction and focuses on global logistics) offers insight into ways that workers and social movements can exploit choke points to resist the power of capital and states. Indeed, there are well-known historical disruptions that fit our rubric, in particular some famous global coordinated actions by dockworkers in the twentieth century. Perhaps the most familiar attempt of active cooperation between port workers and extractive workers was a week-long national dock strike in the United Kingdom in solidarity with coal miners in 1984 and in opposition to the anti-labor positions of the Thatcher government. The strike fizzled out — largely owing to flagging solidarity at the ports (and maybe because there was no broader global coordination) — and the British coal industry was decimated. But actions by longshoremen on the us West Coast in the 1930s opposing Nazism and fascism by refusing to unload German and Italian goods, and more recent coordinated anti-apartheid actions by maritime workers in the United States and Australia who effectively blocked South African shipping cargo in and out of ports beginning in the 1960s through the mid-1990s, were quite successful. Strategic mobilization at GCC choke points has worked in the past and may be a potent weapon in the future.

The supply chain management versus the GCC/world-system approach

At first glance the goals of the SCM approach seems consistent with the GCC perspective. For instance, a 2001 review article which sought to clarify the meaning of SCM notes that supply chains themselves are defined as networks of actors: almost always firms, but sometimes including consumers, and that there is an emphasis on the unimpeded flow of goods and the strategic actions that firms undertake in these efforts. But the key difference is that the ultimate goal of SCM is to analyze firms' efficiency across the supply chain, particularly maximizing efficiency in the use of capital. So a recent popular book on SCM is unequivocal: the objective is to "serve customers in the most cost-effective way" and to "reduce or eliminate buffers" to the smooth and effective functioning of supply chains.

To some degree, Gary Gereffi himself seems...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745337244
• ISBN 13: 9780745337241
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 280
• Herausgeber: Alimahomed-Wilson Jake
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland