Fragmented But Widespread Microconflicts: Current Limits and Future Possibilities for Organizing Precarious Workers in the French Logistics Sector
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Carlotta Benvegnù
,
David Gaborieau
Abstract
The logistics sector in France is emblematic of contemporary labor processes in the service sector, where working conditions are at the root of a long-term, but silent, health crisis. Although the unionization of French logistics workers has gained some strength since the early 2000s, struggles over wages and working conditions remained segmented and local, and were unable to contain the progressive casualization of the employment or to counter the intensification of work. This article is a reflection on the fragmented and low-intensity conflictuality of the French logistics sector. Drawing on three ethnographic studies and on quantitative data, we analyze labor conflicts in various segments of the warehouse industry during the last decade in France, and identify some of the limits of French trade union strategies toward organizing logistics workers. We show that the massive use of temporary work and the weakness of the efforts made by traditional trade unions federations prevent the emergence of a larger labor movement in the sector. We argue that the fragmentation and the very high turnover that characterizes the French warehouse industry should encourage trade unions to invest more resources, often local and rooted in logistics zones, from outside the workplace.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editors’ Forums
- Workers’ Movements and the Global Supply Chain: Introduction
- Supply Chain Organizing as a Worker-led Strategy for Trade: A Case Study of Unite the Union
- Automation Processes in the Port Industry and Union Strategies: The Case of Antwerp
- Toward Degrowth: Worker Power, Surveillance Abolition, and Climate Justice at Amazon
- Fragmented But Widespread Microconflicts: Current Limits and Future Possibilities for Organizing Precarious Workers in the French Logistics Sector
- Global Justice Advocacy, Trade Unions, and the Supply Chain Law Initiative in Germany
- Reportage
- Supply Chain Workers’ Inquiries: Class Struggle along Value Chains
- Book Reviews
- John M. Hobson: Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy: Beyond the Western-Centric Frontier
- Benjamin D. Hopkins: Ruling the Savage Periphery: Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State
- Daniel Palm: Seizing the Square. 1989 Protests in China and Germany from a Global Perspective
- Peter Svik: Civil Aviation and the Globalization of the Cold War
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editors’ Forums
- Workers’ Movements and the Global Supply Chain: Introduction
- Supply Chain Organizing as a Worker-led Strategy for Trade: A Case Study of Unite the Union
- Automation Processes in the Port Industry and Union Strategies: The Case of Antwerp
- Toward Degrowth: Worker Power, Surveillance Abolition, and Climate Justice at Amazon
- Fragmented But Widespread Microconflicts: Current Limits and Future Possibilities for Organizing Precarious Workers in the French Logistics Sector
- Global Justice Advocacy, Trade Unions, and the Supply Chain Law Initiative in Germany
- Reportage
- Supply Chain Workers’ Inquiries: Class Struggle along Value Chains
- Book Reviews
- John M. Hobson: Multicultural Origins of the Global Economy: Beyond the Western-Centric Frontier
- Benjamin D. Hopkins: Ruling the Savage Periphery: Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State
- Daniel Palm: Seizing the Square. 1989 Protests in China and Germany from a Global Perspective
- Peter Svik: Civil Aviation and the Globalization of the Cold War
