Awards

• Winner of Russo & Linkon Award 2019 (United States)

Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jake Alimahomed-Wilson ,  Immanuel Ness
Publisher:   Pluto Press
Imprint:   Pluto Press
Weight:   0.370kg
ISBN:  

9780745337241

ISBN 10:   0745337244
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   20 April 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Professional & Vocational ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Forging Workers’ Resistance Across the Global Supply Chain - Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness PART I - Building Labor Power and Solidarity Across the World’s Choke Points 1. Labor and Social Movements’ Strategic Usage of the Global Commodity Chain Structure - Elizabeth A. Sowers, Paul S. Ciccantell, and David A. Smith 2. Across the Chain: Labor and Conflicts in the European Maritime Logistics Sector - Andrea Bottalico 3. Durban Dockers, Labor Internationalism, and Pan-Africanism - Peter Cole PART II - Disruptions: Logistics Workers Resisting Exploitation 4. Worker Militancy and Strikes in China’s Docks - Bai Ruixue and Au Loong Yu 5. “Work Hard, Make History”: Oppression and Resistance in Inland Southern California’s Warehouse and Distribution Industry - Ellen Reese and Jason Struna 6. Stop Treating Us Like Dogs! Workers Organizing Resistance at Amazon in Poland - Amazon workers and supporters 7. Decolonizing Logistics: Palestinian Truckers on the Occupied Supply Chain - Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Spencer Louis Potiker PART III - Neoliberalism and the Global Transformation of Ports 8. Decoding the Transition in the Ports of Mumbai - Johnson Abhishek Minz 9. Back to Piraeus: Precarity for All! - Dimitris Parsanoglou and Carolin Philipp 10. Contested Logistics? Neoliberal Modernization and Resistance in the Port City of Valparaíso - Jorge Budrovich Sáez and Hernán Cuevas Valenzuela 11. Logistics Workers’ Struggles in Turkey: Neoliberalism and Counterstrategies - Çağatay Edgücan Şahin and Pekin Bengisu Tepe PART IV - New Organizing Strategies for the Global Supply Chain 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 13. Lessons Learned from Eight Years of Experimental Organizing in Southern California’s Logistics Sector - Sheheryar Kaoosji 14. Struggles and Grassroots Organizing in an Extended European Choke Point - Carlotta Benvegnù and Niccolò Cuppini 15. Beyond the Waterfront: Maintaining and Expanding Worker Power in the Maritime Supply Chain - Peter Olney Contributor Biographies Index

Reviews

'Beyond analyzing logistical choke points as abstract sites for capital to route around or locations in which workers acquire untimely power, this volume takes us straight into these crucial nodes of labor struggle. Choke points in global supply chains are revealed as spaces of hazard and calculation, violence and negotiation, victory and loss, passion and organization' -- Brett Neilson, Research Professor, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Author Information

Immanuel Ness is Professor of Political Science at City University of New York. He is author of Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class (Pluto, 2015), co-editor of Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain (Pluto, 2018) and editor of the International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society. Jake Alimahomed-Wilson is Professor of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach. His research interests are in the areas of logistics, racism and labour, and workers' struggles. He is the author of Solidarity Forever? Race, Gender, and Unionism in the Ports of Southern California (Lexington Books, 2016), co-author of Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution (Cornell University Press, 2008) and the editor of Choke Points (Pluto, 2018).

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