About
Research team: Benjamin Fong, Scott Jenkins
The largest private-sector employers in the United States are currently Walmart, Amazon, UPS, Fedex, and Home Depot, in that order. All have built out sophisticated logistical operations that constitute key components of the circulatory system of the American economy. The Center for Work & Democracy's "Labor and Logistics" project is devoted to understanding those operations, with a keen eye toward what historian John Womack calls industrial "seams" - locations and relations of vulnerability that can be seized and pressured in such a way as to gain real leverage.
The Labor & Logistics project is headed by the Center's associate director, Benjamin Y. Fong. He runs a Substack newsletter with former Center affiliate Scott Jenkins called On the Seams, where much of the research undertaken by the Labor & Logistics project has a home. Subscribe to On the Seams to stay updated on ongoing Labor & Logistics research.
Fong, B.Y., & Jenkins, S. (2024). Blue-Collar Workers Deserve Six-Figure Salaries Too. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2024/10/ila-longshore-workers-strike-salaries
Jenkins, S. & Fong, B.Y. (2024). The Port Strike Called the Shipping Companies' Bluff. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2024/10/longshoremen-strike-ila-usmx-wages