Corridors as Factories
Supply Chains, Logistics and Labour

Logistics -- now a $4.7 trillion industry and said to be the world's largest employer -- is reshaping global production, distribution and consumption.

The implications for labour are profound. Automation in combination with just-in-time logistics regimes are subjecting workers to degrading just-in-time labour practices. More work is now contingent piece work; workers are increasingly subjected to electronic monitoring; work is increasingly degraded; and new forms of unpaid labour are proliferating, particularly online.

The direction of travel is towards increased exploitation of workers; new forms of corporate control; an ineluctable increase in energy use; and spiralling environmental destruction, not least through the proliferation of new "logistics hubs" and interconnecting corridors.

This study, published by Counter Balance, a Brussels-based NGO (http://www.counter-balance.org/report-logistics-2020/), examines the political and economic interests driving logistics and the mega-corridors on which logisticised supply chains increasingly depend.

Related resource:

How Infrastructure is Shaping the World (http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/how-infrastructure-shaping-world).