Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution

by Edna Bonacich, Jake Wilson

In Getting the Goods, Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson focus on the Southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach―which together receive 40 percent of the nearly $2 trillion worth of goods imported annually to the United States―to examine the impact of the logistics revolution on workers in transportation and distribution. Built around the invention of shipping containers and communications technology, the logistics revolution has enabled giant retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to sell cheap consumer products made using low-wage labor in developing countries. The goods are shipped through an efficient, low-cost, intermodal freight system, in which containers are moved from factories in Asia to distribution centers across the United States without ever being opened. Bonacich and Wilson follow the flow of imports from Asian factories, exploring the roles of importers, container shipping companies, the ports, railroad and trucking companies, and warehouses. At each stage, Getting the Goods raises important questions about how the logistics revolution affects logistics workers. Drawing extensively on interviews with workers and managers at all levels of the supply chain, on industry reports, and on economic data, Bonacich and Wilson find that, in general, conditions have deteriorated for workers. But they also discover that changes in the system of production and distribution provide new strategic opportunities for labor to gain power. A much-needed corrective to both uncritical celebrations of containerization and the global economy and pessimistic predictions about the future of the U.S. labor movement, Getting the Goods will become required reading for scholars and students in sociology, political economy, and labor studies.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Labor

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Alex]

Read for a college class and is an extremely interesting book! The analysis made between the Logistics Revolution and the impacts on cheap labor, the exploitation of natural resources, and the breakage of unions is def worth further researching.

[Mitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made sense of a lot of things when I was working in warehouses

[Sidney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been telling everybody about this eye-opening book over the last month or so. I highly suggest it.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential read to understand the landscape of organizing in logistics.

[dana]

Nice introduction to problems of the logistics revolution. Makes a good companion to Kahili’s Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (which I prefer). The real value here, for me at least, is in the number of interviews conducted with industry professionals. These give a great insight into the detachment between higher ups and the rest of the supply chain. I enjoyed all the complaints about the awful ex-military Walmart guys. I was reminded of this book because Banaji cited it here: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org...

[Tynan Brooks]

Interesting text on logistics's effects on labor and capital. There's ways in which being 14 years old dates it, even just in the limited view of things that I get at my own workplace, but it's a good starting point.