Unfree Shipping: The Racialization of Logistics Labor

• In Event: 2429 - Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Roundtable 14

Abstract

The logistics revolution transformed the ways that goods are produced and transported around the world producing numerous deleterious outcomes for workers, including the deterioration of wages and labor standards, attacks on unions, and the increase of precarious contingent labor conditions. A related, yet underexplored, process related to the logistics revolution has been the role of racialization in further amplifying the deterioration of working conditions across the global supply chain. Therefore, this paper explores how the racialization of labor 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 racialization accelerated the negative labor impacts related to the logistics revolution across these sectors.

Author

• Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, California State University, Long Beach