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DRAYING AND PICKING: PRECARIOUS WORK

AND LABOR ACTION IN THE LOGISTICS SECTOR
David Jaffee and David Bensman

Recent research on labor market conditions in the United States points to a rise in “precarious work,” which is
characterized by low wages, unstable and/or temporary work arrangements, underemployment, economic
insecurity, and an absence of employer-provided benefits. This article examines the prevalence of precarious work
in the growing logistics sector of the U.S. economy and the mechanisms facilitating these working conditions.
These domestic developments are placed in the context of the geographic reorganization of production and the
restructuring of the employment relationship under a neo-liberal political economic regime. This article
highlights two logistics industries, drayage trucking and warehouse/distribution centers (W/DCs)—and the
challenges facing workers in these industries. For port truckers, this involves their misclassification as
“independent contractors.” For W/DC workers, the core issue is labor outsourcing and temporary work. The
article concludes with an overview of recent labor actions taken to improve conditions for workers.

“Yesterday’s manufacturing jobs are today’s logistics jobs.”

North Carolina State Ports Authority

The current labor struggles in port trucking and warehousing are linked to
the globalization of production and the associated restructuring of corporate
organization in the expanding transportation and logistics sector. What macro-
structural factors contributed to the growing prominence of the transportation
and logistics sector of the U.S. economy, and the rise of precarious work? How
have organizations restructured work in the logistics segment of global supply
chains? What actions have been taken, and are being proposed, to address pre-
carious work in this sector?

Globalization and the Logistics Revolution

Globalization has given rise to the geographic dispersion of production

processes and “the functional integration of such internationally dispersed
activities” (Dicken 1998, 5). As a result, the study of globalization dynamics has
focused on the interorganizational relations among interdependent entities,
conceptualized as commodity chains (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994), global
production networks (Coe, Dicken, and Hesse 2008), or global value chains

WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society · 1089-7011 · Volume 19 · March 2016 · pp. 57–79
VC 2016 Immanuel Ness and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
58 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

(Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon 2005), that serve as integrating mechanisms.

While much of the literature has described the relocation of manufacturing to
offshore and more profitable locations, and the dispersion of production to
developing nations, transportation and logistics within the global chains or net-
works has received insufficient attention (Bonacich and Wilson 2008 is a notable
exception). This element has become increasingly important due to the growing
distance between the point of production and the point of consumption. Logis-
tics and supply-chain management are now dominant foci of corporate strategy
(Bensman 2008; Coe 2014; Hesse and Rodrigue 2006).
The global value chain is a sequence of activities ranging from
product research, design, and development to production, marketing and sales
(Kaplinsky and Morris 2001). Within this model, logistics is a relatively high
value activity in relation to production (Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon
2005), but of lower value than research and development or marketing. It is rec-
ognized as indispensable for the entire value chain, because logistics operations
connect the links. For the retail sector, this was facilitated by the containerization
of cargo (Levinson 2006) and the intermodal system of transportation by truck,
rail, and container ships, with maritime ports serving as gateways into national
markets (Bonacich and Wilson 2008; Rodrigue, Comtois, and Slack 2009).
In the retail, or “buyer-driven,” commodity/value chain along which the
shipping containers are transported, Walmart stands out as the prototype for
supply chain efficiency and cost effectiveness by squeezing costs out of produc-
tion and logistics, thereby impacting workers across a range of occupations
(Appelbaum and Lichtenstein 2006; Lichtenstein 2010). Retail competition
requires firms to minimize transportation and distribution costs as so that they
do not nullify the cost advantages of offshoring. The net result is the externaliza-
tion of costs, which is reflected in the working conditions, arrangements, and
compensation of logistics workers.
We describe these labor market conditions as forms of “precarious work,” or
jobs characterized by low wages, unstable work arrangements, temporary
employment relationships, underemployment, economic insecurity, an absence
of employer-provided benefits, and a lack of legal and regulatory protections
(Kalleberg 2011; Standing 2011). Consistent with Standing’s analysis of the
“precariat,” we regard these conditions as a direct product of globalization under
neoliberal policies which sought to “maximize competition and competitiveness,
and to allow market principles to permeate all aspects of life” (Standing 2011, 1).
In the neoliberal model, government policies and corporate practices have made
labor-market flexibility a key goal. Pursuing this goal, corporations have made
adjustments in organizational structure, staffing, compensation, work design,
benefits, and contractual obligation. As Standing (2011, 6) argues and docu-
ments, “as globalization proceeded, and as governments and corporations
chased each other in making their labor relations more flexible, the number of
people in insecure forms of labor multiplied.” Or, as Kalleberg (2011, 37) puts
it, “The institutional pressures on firms exerted by macrostructural forces – and
employers’ responses to them – are the central drivers of change in job quality.”
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 59

On the level of organizational structure, job insecurity has been facilitated

by a shift toward a more vertically disintegrated organizational form, where the
ownership of upstream and downstream enterprises is abandoned in the name of
“lean flexibility” and “core competencies” (Weil 2014). Lichtenstein (2014)
chronicles this process as the historical movement from the visible hand of the
vertically-integrated firm to the predominance of supply-chain relationships.
He notes that while the supply-chain is “composed of a disparate set of legally
and organizationally autonomous ‘vendors’”, in terms of governance they are as
“well controlled and as hierarchical as the most vertically integrated corporation
of the old economy” (13). Nevertheless, these firms avoid the personnel, human
resource management, or “other social, legal, and contractual obligations that
have increasingly been attached to employer status since the New Deal” (Gonos
1997, 86). Under this arrangement, the lead firms have control and command
over competing venders/suppliers, but no legal responsibility or liability as
employers.
A further advantage is based on a modification of how wages are determined.
According to Weil, “Fissuring changes how gains are shared in a fundamental
way: by shifting work out, lead firms no longer face a wage determination prob-
lem for that work but rather a pricing problem in selecting between companies
vying for it. That change is critical because it results in fewer gains going to the
workers who undertake those activities. It instead shifts those gains to investors”
(Weil 2014, 76). This process reduces worker compensation in two ways. First,
it eliminates the wage “demonstration effect” that results in efforts and negotia-
tions by lower-paid workers to obtain levels of compensation provided to more
highly skilled employees within the same firm or location. Second, with work
outsourced to firms that compete for the lead company’s business, there is fur-
ther downward pressure on labor costs (Weil 2014).

Precarious Work in Drayage Trucking and Warehouse/

Distribution Centers

These organizational strategies undermined workers’ power in the American

port drayage and warehouse/distribution (W/DCs) industries. For drayage, this
involves outsourcing to “independent contractors”; for W/DCs, it involves out-
sourcing through several organizational layers.

Drayage

In the retail-dominated, or buyer-driven, commodity chain, consumer

goods move in large containers. Containers are unloaded from ships at port con-
tainer terminals, then transferred to another transport mode for movement off
the terminal. The most common mode is short-haul trucking, known as
“drayage,” which entails hauling containers on trailer chassis by diesel-powered
truck cabs. Drayage is an essential link in the movement of goods from the ter-
minal to W/DC or rail. The industry is characterized by small logistics and
60 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

trucking firms which compete for contracts with shippers. Drivers may be
employees, but more commonly are “owner-operators.”
Port truckers represent a significant segment of the logistics labor force.
The best study of the working conditions of truck drivers is Belzer’s Sweatshop
On Wheels, a story of the decline in labor market conditions as trucking changed
from the a protected and regulated, to an unprotected and deregulated, industry
with the passage of The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (Belzer 2000; Belman and
Monaco 2001; Bensman 2009; Peoples and Talley 2004). Prior to deregulation,
licensing requirements enforced by the Interstate Commerce Commission
restricted the number of firms and trucks, thereby stabilizing prices and, with
Teamster representation of drivers, providing truckers with attractive compen-
sation and benefits. Rising wages and operating expenses were passed on in
higher shipping costs. Deregulation was accomplished in 1980 on a nonpartisan
basis, as liberals led by Sen. Edward Kennedy called for an end to corporate
monopolies, conservatives advocated market competition, and African-
Americans protested their exclusion from well-paying jobs. The Motor Carrier
Act altered the landscape, allowing the entry of low-cost, nonunion firms. The
resulting drop in the price of freight transport made the rapid expansion of off-
shoring and global trade possible, but it had a devastating effect on port truckers.
The increasing number of players depressed compensation and union represen-
tation (Belzer 1995).
Prince describes the trucking labor force as internally stratified. “At the
bottom of the pyramid are owner-operators hauling international containers –
the fastest growing segment of intermodal traffic (Prince 2005, 13). Bonacich
adds, “Of all the global trade related logistics workers, port truckers are the most
oppressed” (2003, 46).
The “independent contractor” arrangement represents the outsourcing
model used in drayage trucking (Bensman 2009, 2014a). Trucking firms—rather
than owning trucks and hiring workers as employees—contract with drivers who
own or lease their vehicles. At the largest ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach, 86
percent of the drivers are owner operators (Monaco and Grobar, 2004). These
drivers work for, but are not officially employed by, one and only one trucking
company, and they are paid by the trip, rather than the hour. Contracting with
owner-operators frees trucking companies from any obligations they would
incur as employers, including social security taxes, unemployment compensa-
tion, workers’ compensation, health benefits, pensions, and compliance with
occupational health and safety and nondiscrimination statutes. This
“independent contractor” model, while vulnerable to legal challenges, served to
enhance the trucking firms’ flexibility.
Further, and quite significantly, as an “independent business,” the owner
operator is prohibited from joining with other owner-operators to act collectively
to improve wages and working conditions through a union or a business associa-
tion. Doing so would violate federal anti-trust laws. (See Paul forthcoming).
Although the truck companies categorize these drivers as “independent con-
tractors” when they file 1,099 forms with the Internal Revenue Service, the
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 61

owner-operators are essentially “dependent” contractors who are not allowed to

work for more than one trucking firm, receive no employee benefits, are com-
pensated by the trip rather than the hour, and absorb all costs associated with
the operation of their vehicles as well as with the inefficiency of the system. The
latter includes routine but costly delays and bottlenecks (including terminal
security clearance, dependence on terminal operations to locate containers, pro-
cess paperwork, or provide roadworthy chassis, and traffic congestion). For
owner-operators, who are paid by the trip, wait time is one of the most signifi-
cant factors impacting compensation, contributing to the extended hours of the
workday, and generating health-draining levels of stress (On compensation and
overwork, see Bensman and Bromberg 2008; East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable
Economy 2007; Harrison et al. 2007; Jaffee and Rowley 2009; Monaco and
Grobar 2004; Port Jobs 2007; Smith, Bensman, and Marvy 2010; see also
DePillis, 2014; for stress, see below).
Overall, drayage owner-operators work in a labor market characterized by
high turnover, long working days, low earnings, the absence of employer-
provided benefits, poor occupational safety outcomes, poor standards and enti-
tlements, and high exposure to injuries, disease, and psychological distress. The
drivers are responsible for maintenance, repairs, fuel, tire replacement, road
taxes, insurance, tolls, traffic fines, radio, and/or telephone bills, truck leases and
tax preparation (East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy 2007; Port Jobs
2007; Smith, Bensman, and Marvy 2010).
The drivers’ dependence on one firm limits the amount of work available to
them to cover expenses. In a 2009 study (Jaffee and Rowley 2009), 98.1 percent
of the owner-operators surveyed in Jacksonville indicated they were “not allowed
to work for other firms”. Other studies reported similar findings. Therefore,
truckers are “misclassified” as independent contractors (Bensman 2014a; Smith,
Bensman, and Marvy 2010; Smith, Marvy, and Zerolnick 2014). While they are
strictly regulated by corporate entities to benefit the firms’ production and eco-
nomic advantage, they are considered “independent owner operators” when it
comes to benefits, worker rights, maintenance, and repairs. The misclassification
of drivers as “independent contractors” can be verified if one applies the defining
conditions for employee classification to their labor market status. As outlined
by Smith, Bensman, and Marvy (2010), these conditions include “behavioral
control,” “financial control,” and “type of relationship.” Behaviorally, the con-
tracting firm determines what containers are moved, when and where, so there is
no autonomy or discretion. Financially, the firms set a price for the container
move, and drivers have no independent ability to determine their level of com-
pensation. Finally, drivers are only permitted to move containers for one truck-
ing company. These three conditions establish—as is demonstrated by repeated
rulings by California courts—an absolute clear-cut case of the drivers’ misclassi-
fication as “independent contractor.”
In addition to the economic consequences of the independent contractor
arrangement, there are implications for occupational health and safety, an area
that deserves greater attention in the study of precarious work (Lewchuk,
62 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

Clarke, and DeWolff 2011; Quinlan and Bohle 2009; Quinlan, Mayhew and
Bohle 2001; Tompa et al. 2007). Trucking is classified as one of the highest risk
occupations in the U.S. with Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
having the highest number of work fatalities of any occupation (Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2012). Nearly fifteen million truck drivers are susceptible to
occupationally-induced health conditions (Apostolopoulos, S€ onmez, and Shattell
2010), including high morbidity and mortality rates associated with: exposures to
poor air quality and toxins from prolonged exposure to diesel emissions; insuffi-
cient diets, limited availability of nutritional foods available in truck stops and gas
stations; injuries from accidents; anxiety and stress from deadlines, scheduling,
long work hours, truck repair responsibilities, traffic congestion, and safety con-
cerns; being sedentary in truck cabs for long hours at a time; and unpaid wait times
at ports, terminals and distribution centers (Apostolopoulos, S€ onmez, Shattell
2010; Gonzalez et al. 2011; Hricko 2006; Williamson et al. 2009).
As owner-operators, the drivers are not provided with health insurance by
their employer and thus may lack access to health care. More than two-thirds of
port truckers in Houston, Seattle and Jacksonville reported lacking health insur-
ance (Harrison et al. 2007; Jaffee and Rowley 2009; Port Jobs 2007). Of the
owner operators who had insurance, less than one percent received it from their
company (Bensman and Bromberg 2008).

Warehouse/Distribution Centers

When shipping containers leave a port, they are transported by truck or rail
to a W/DC. W/DCs are critical for inventory control and just-in-time delivery
in the retail supply chain (see Bonacich and Wilson 2008, chapter 6). Under the
tightly controlled “pull” system in buyer-driven commodity chains, the facilities’
function has changed. The emphasis is no longer on stockpiling just-in-case, but
rather on sorting, distributing, and consolidating goods so that they arrive just-
in-time. For this reason, logistics professionals eschew the term “warehouse.”
Accordingly, much activity is devoted to “cross-docking,” where subsets of
goods are removed from a container and placed directly in a truck docked on the
opposite side of the W/DC for delivery elsewhere.
As the consumer goods industry became increasingly competitive, empha-
sizing rapid response times to meet shifting customer demand, the role of W/
DCS became increasingly important. Sanders and Ritzman explain, “Today’s
competitive environment, characterized by short response times, requires ware-
houses to be dynamic organizations that can rapidly respond to changes in the
quantity and nature of demand. As companies and industries use customer serv-
ice as a competitive tool, warehouses have begun to play an increasingly impor-
tant role in facilitating this type of competition” (Sanders and Ritzman 2004,
251; also see Baker 2004).
The industry includes large and small firms, as well as large and small facili-
ties. W/DCs may be owned and operated by manufacturers, retailers, or a third
party logistics (3PL) firm. Most of the literature on W/DCs is technical
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 63

mathematical models and operations research strategies for the design, plan-
ning, and control of W/DC systems (see e.g., Chow et al. 2006; Sanders and
Ritzman 2004). When W/DCs are considered within the larger context of sup-
ply chains, they are linked with the concept of “agility.”
There has been scant labor-related research conducted on W/DC workers
(again, a noteworthy exception is Bonacich and Wilson 2008, chapter 9). Recent
investigations of working conditions have been reported in various mass media
publications (see e.g., Jamieson 2011; Myerson 2009). The majority of workers
in the W/DC sector are “picker-packers.” Picking involves locating, scanning,
and sending an item, often on a conveyer belt to the packer who prepares it to
leave the W/DC. These workers also move materials and, therefore, engage in a
wide range of physical activities.
Unlike drayage, the factory-like workplace conditions in the W/DC sector
provide opportunities for workers to communicate and act collectively. How-
ever, due to the strategic fragmentation of the industry into various types of
ownership and management arrangements, this potential for collective action
faces severe challenges (see Weil 2014). While the W/DC facilities might be
owned and managed by a producer or large retailer, the W/DC function might
be outsourced to a third-party logistics (3PL) company. That firm, in turn, con-
tracts for labor services with temp staffing agencies, which are for-profit labor
market intermediaries which grew rapidly beginning in the 1970s (Cho et al.
2012; Freeman and Gonos 2005; Weil 2014). This multi-tiered subcontracting
arrangement is most common, and labor conditions are least favorable, in the
W/DCs that serve the containerized cargo supply chain, where large retailers
exert the greatest pressure to “sweat the assets”; that is to say, to squeeze costs
out of the logistics network. This is done by reassigning workers to a variety of
different tasks throughout the day, and by requiring them to walk long distances,
endure extreme weather conditions, and lift and move heavy loads (Hernandez
et al. 2014; Jamieson 2015). Furthermore, they are subject to irregular and
abrupt shifts in schedules (Sanders and Ritzman 2004). Not surprisingly, ware-
house work is plagued by higher than average employee turnover, and job secu-
rity is the most significant factor that predicts recruitment and retention rates of
warehouse workers (Min 2007). Studies of temporary workers have long identi-
fied warehouses as locations where employment is particularly insecure, poorly
paid, and stressful (see McAllister 1998).
Several interrelated conditions characterize this sector—low wage compen-
sation, antiunion activity, labor flexibilization, and racialization (Bonacich and
Wilson 2008). The single largest physical concentration of W/DCs serving
intermodal container cargo is found in California’s Inland Empire. This is also
where most research on working conditions has been conducted (Bonacich and
Wilson 2008; DeLara 2013; Meyerson 2009). Bonacich and Wilson (2008, 226)
estimate that 90,000 W/DC workers are employed there. Over half are Latino,
and over half are employed through temporary agencies. Almost none are repre-
sented by unions (see also Ciscel, Smith, and Mendoza 2003 on immigrant labor
and warehouse work).
64 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

Labor flexibilization, the externalization of cost, and nonunionization are all

accomplished through the use of temporary staffing agencies. One survey of the
literature makes the following human resource recommendation: “Flexibilization
of labor is an important issue in warehouses. Flexibilization implies that through-
out the day personnel are shifted between activities whenever extra capacity is
needed. Furthermore, if the available labor capacity is insufficient, then temporary
staff are hired from an agency. Accordingly, labor costs will be minimized” (van
den Berg 1999, 760). Human resource and worker compensation costs are also
avoided and externalized to the temp agencies. Bonacich and Wilson’s analysis of
the W/DC sector in the Inland Empire concludes that “one of the major motives
for the use of temp agencies is to avoid dealing with workers’ comp” (Bonacich
and Wilson 2008, 226). Further, when a worker is employed by a temp agency,
rather than by the company that owns the W/DC, his or her ability to engage in
collective action is diminished. Jamieson reports that some large retailers out-
source logistics at their biggest distribution hubs to firms that then subcontract to
multiple staffing agencies within the same W/DC (Jamieson 2011, 2015). This
insulates retailers, who are twice removed, from responsibility, accountability, and
liability (Cho et al. 2012; Kalleberg and Marsden 2005). The result for workers is
low wages, high stress, and insecure employment (see McClelland, 2012 for a col-
orful insider look at the retail W/DC).
Weil (2014, 160–7) provides a detailed description of the interfirm relations
involved in the W/DC sector based on Walmart as the lead firm and the Inland
Empire as the location. It fits the pattern described above. Walmart outsources
its W/DC logistics functions to Schneider Logistics, an asset-based firm that
provides a full range of services in North America and China. Schneider owns
the DC, has direct employees, but also relies heavily on subcontractors for the
increasingly large portion of its temporary workforce. One of these firms, now
twice removed from Walmart, is Impact Logistics, which supplies the staffing.
Among the services provided by Impact Logistics, and highlighted on its web
page (Impact Logistics 2014), is “flex labor,” with a fixed cost-per-unit-labor
model, as well as on-site management, to establish work standards and proce-
dures, and ensure worker communication, supervision, and training. In its pro-
motional video (with Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Takin Care of Business”
playing in the background), Impact touts its role as “the nation’s leading labor
provider,” specializing in “professional freight handling” for which “you pay
only for work performed, not hours worked,” by an operation that will
“consistently promote Christian principles” and motivate its associates using a
“performance pay scale based on work completed.” This exemplifies the grow-
ing trend in the W/DC sector toward piecework—that is, payment by the num-
ber of items picked, packed, or moved/unloaded, rather than by an hourly wage
(Warehouse Workers for Justice 2010).
Warehouse Workers for Justice conducted an extensive study of the W/DC
sector in the Chicago metropolitan area, which has seen rapid growth in logistics
jobs due to its establishment as a distribution hub. Based on a sample of over 300
workers at 150 W/DCs, the group reported that 63 percent of workers were
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 65

temps; the median hourly wage was $9.00; the majority of workers received pov-
erty wages; temps were paid on average $3.48 less than direct employees; 25 per-
cent of workers relied on public assistance; 37 percent worked a second job; 4
percent of temps had health insurance; and 20 percent had been injured on the
job (Warehouse Workers for Justice 2010).
Central and northern New Jersey have also seen rapid expansion of W/DCs
(Gonos and Martino 2011; Rowe 2012). In their study of central New Jersey
communities where there are many Latino immigrants, Gonos and Martino
(2011) find a concentration of temp agencies that contract with the W/DC
industry. They have set up locations in communities where the “shape up” is
conducted daily. Workers show up at a specific time, accept assignments at vari-
ous W/DCs, and travel to work in agency vans (for which a transportation fee is
deducted from their paycheck). The agencies compensate workers at between
$7.15 and $9.00 an hour which is insufficient to satisfy the self-sufficiency stand-
ard in New Jersey (Gonos and Martino 2011). The net effect is: “erratic work
schedules, poverty wages, hazardous conditions, demeaning treatment, and no
voice or job control for workers” (Gonos and Martino 2011, 500). Rowe (2012)
followed up this study with a survey of employment conditions in the Central
New Jersey W/DCs and found that the workers are “perma-temps” who work
full-time at the same facility for at least two years, always through an agency that
takes half the wage paid by the warehouse. More than 40 percent of these work-
ers’ families lived below the poverty line (Rowe 2012).
Like the drayage workers, W/DC workers face significant safety and health
issues as a result of their precarious work status. According to Quinlan and Bohle,
the factors that determine the unfavorable occupational safety and health status of
precarious workers are pressure, disorganization, and regulatory failure (known as
the PDR model). More specifically, negative safety and health conditions stem
from pressures of economic insecurity that create competition and vulnerability,
workplace disorganization in the form of unstable relationships and obligations,
and absence of regulatory policy, enforcement, and worker rights awareness
(Quinlan and Boyle 2009). This model has been applied to a qualitative study of
temporary workers (Underhill and Quinlan 2011), which concludes that agency
workers suffer heightened levels of vulnerability as a result of the triangular rela-
tionship among the workers, the agency, and the host firm. Employment and
income insecurity lead to intense competition for work and thus “contribute to a
range of hazardous practices including work intensification, cutting-corners,
accepting hazardous tasks, working when injured and multiple job holding” (399).
According to a study by ProPublica (Pierce, Larson and Grabell 2013), temporary
workers are disproportionately concentrated in the highest risk occupation; they
are 68 percent more likely to work in the 20 percent of occupations with the high-
est injury rates. An examination of workers’ compensation claims for five states
revealed that the incidence of workplace injury for temporary workers was
between 36 and 72 percent higher than for nontemporary workers.
Not only are temp workers concentrated in hazardous jobs, but when they
are paid by piece rate, work intensification arises, and this leads to higher risk of
66 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

injury. Underhill and Quinlan found that “Work intensification was raised fre-
quently by focus group participants, especially those performing repetitive low
skilled tasks such as in call centres and warehousing. One agency storeperson
contrasted his experience with that of host employees: ‘When there’s clocks on
you and you’re timed on a lot of things, you always run the risk of accidents hap-
pening more so than if you didn’t have the clock on. The clock is on the agency
people even more, you can just see the permanents work slower, because they
know they’ve got a job’” (Underhill and Quinlan 2011, 406).
The triangular relationship also directly impacts occupational health and
safety: “Most common was the inability of agency workers to get either party to
respond to OHS concerns, both arguing that it was the other party’s responsibil-
ity. A focus group of warehouse storepersons expressed frustration and a sense of
powerlessness with the refusal of employers and hosts to respond to OHS con-
cerns” (Underhill and Quinlan 2011, 409; see also Weil 2014).
Recently, concern about the health risks associated with temporary ware-
housing work has been raised by a Huffington Post article on the death of a
picker at an Amazon warehouse near Richmond, Virginia. He died of a heart
attack although he was only in his twenties. Prior to his death, Jamieson
reported, the “warehouse had been open for four months. The local fire and
EMS department had dispatched personnel to its address at least 34 times. . .”
(Jamieson 2015).
While it is clear that a significant and growing portion of drayers and pickers
are precarious workers, it is more difficult to determine how many workers hold
these jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics
(BLS/OES) provides data on the numbers of workers and their wages for broad
occupational categories and the subcategories that capture some logistics work-
ers. In the annual May 2013 report of the BLS/OES, the majority can be found
under the heading, Transportation and Material Moving Occupations (53-
0000). In 2013, this broad category accounted for 6.8 percent of U.S. employ-
ment. Port truck drivers would be included under the subcategory of Heavy and
Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers (53-3032), which accounted for 17.6 percent of
total employment within this occupational category. There is no way to deter-
mine the precise number of port truckers or how many are owner-operators.
Within the broad Transportation and Material Moving Occupations cate-
gory are two subcategories—”Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Mov-
ers, Hand” (53-7062) and “Packers and Packagers, Hand” (53-7064). Both
include the W/DC workers described above. Together the two account for 32.8
percent of the nine-million transportation and material moving jobs (BLS
2013).
Examining the BLS/OES data organized by industry reveals the proportion
of drayers and pickers working through staffing agencies. One classification is
Employment Services (NAICS 561300). Overall, Transportation and Material
Moving occupations account for 21 percent of workers in Employment Services.
More specifically, Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers make up
64 percent, and Packers and Packagers 17 percent, of these service workers.
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 67

The trend for both occupations is toward greater temp agency employment.
From 2009 to 2013, the proportion of workers in these two occupations com-
bined, working through employment agencies, increased from 14.0 to 19.3 per-
cent. This trend toward greater precariousness is consistent with the general
labor market experience of U.S. workers (see National Employment Law
Project 2012).
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers, and Laborers and Freight, Stock,
and Material Movers rank eighth and ninth among the twenty fastest growing
occupations, with estimated growth of 21 and 15 percent, . Growth of these sec-
tors will increase precariousness in the labor market unless actions are taken to
stem the tide.

Improving Conditions of Work: Worker Actions and Policy Proposals

Labor Action in Port Trucking

When the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) began organizing

port truckers in 1998, its challenges were many. First, since most of the drivers
worked as “independent contractors,” they were barred from joining a union
under existing legal interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act. Fur-
thermore, the industry was fragmented, atomized, and competitive. Cost pres-
sures compelled companies to squeeze their contracted drivers, resulting in a
race to the bottom with regard to wages and working conditions, and a high rate
of turnover among drivers (Husing, Brightbill, and Crosby 2007). Scholars have
long regarded drayage as an industry immune to union organization (Belzer
2000; Belman and Monaco 2001). But the organizing landscape is changing as
organizers have recognized the growing and strategic importance of logistics for
the larger economy. In 2005, a Cornell University conference on global union-
ism included a panel on organizing in the logistics industry, featuring represen-
tatives from the International Transport Workers’ global union federation. In
the following two years, the Teamsters signed an agreement with the Change to
Win Federation to partner in organizing port truckers, and Change to Win
unveiled a campaign to organize warehousing.
In the beginning, the Teamsters/Change-to-Win campaign exerted political
pressure on port authorities to require trucking companies hauling freight to
and from the port to provide emission-compliant vehicles and employee drivers.
The latter provision—known as the “employee-mandate”—would, proponents
argued, reduce the number of owner-operators, increase the number of
employee drivers, provide them with greater economic compensation and secu-
rity, and make it legal for them to organize a union.
This campaign was launched in several ports. The Coalition for Clean and
Safe Ports—joining together labor, environmental, environmental justice, com-
munity, and faith-based organizations—established a presence in Long Beach/
Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Seattle/Tacoma, Miami, and Newark/
Elizabeth. It developed most fully in Los Angeles/Long Beach, where the Los
68 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

Angeles Association for a New Economy, the National Resource Defense Coun-
cil, the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma and the Southern Cali-
fornia Environmental Health Sciences Center proved effective partners.
Organizing under the banner of improving air quality and improving public
health in port-adjacent communities, the Coalition enlisted the support of local
politicians, including L.A. Harbor Commissioner Janice Hahn, who later was
elected to the County Board of Supervisors and then to the U.S. Congress, and
Los Angeles Mayor Ramon Villaraigosa.
In October, 2008, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission adopted a Clean
Trucks Program containing a concession model and an employee mandate.
Implementation was halted, however, by a court injunction lawsuit filed by the
American Trucking Association. A Federal appeals court struck down the
employee-mandate, in 2011, ruling that it was pre-empted by federal maritime
regulations. The ruling meant that the Coalition had to adopt a different strat-
egy (While the employee mandate died, the Clean Trucks program did succeed
in forcing the Southern California drayage industry to replace old trucks with a
fleet compliant with 2007 federal emission standards).
The organizing strategy shifted to attacking the basis of the drayage indus-
try’s business model, which was the misclassification of its labor force as
“independent contractors.” This strategy had been rejected at the time the IBT/
Change to Win alliance had been constructed, on the grounds that proving mis-
classification would be time-consuming and expensive, because each lawsuit
alleging violation of employment laws would have to be based on the facts dis-
covered at each drayage company. Nevertheless, once it became clear that fed-
eral preemption was going to prevail, the campaign shifted to proving that most
owner operators were indeed dependent on the drayage companies, not inde-
pendent businessmen.
The strategy moved on two fronts. Political mobilizing and lobbying pres-
sure achieved success when the California state legislature revised the law defin-
ing employment and misclassification on September 8, 2011. According to the
California Division of Industrial Relations, the new law “prohibited the willful
misclassification of individuals as independent contractors.” It created “civil
penalties of between $5,000 and $25,000 per violation,” and it prohibited charg-
ing fees to or making deductions from the compensation paid to those misclassi-
fied workers.” Going further, the law provided that “(w)orkers who do not
receive minimum wages, overtime pay, or pay for meals and breaks because their
employer misclassifies them as an independent contractor can file a wage claim
with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement” (State of California 2011).
This legislation, which includes the strongest language prohibiting misclas-
sification in the United States, grew out of not only the alliance’s political mobi-
lization, but also the success of California’s then-Attorney General Jerry
Brown’s prosecution of cases involving misclassification in drayage. In 2008,
Brown launched a series of lawsuits “prosecuting California port trucking com-
panies for engaging in employee misclassification, and for failing to provide
workers with Social Security, worker’s compensation, and Medicare benefits
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 69

that they are legally entitled to, according to California state law” (Howard Law
2010). Five successful lawsuits were filed. One suit, filed against Pacifica Truck-
ing, argued that “the drivers for Pacifica should have been classified as employ-
ees, with all of the legal benefits that employees are entitled to under state law,
and not independent contractors–as Pacifica Trucks maintained total control
over the drivers, by providing and covering the trucks, gas, equipment, and other
employee expenses related to their business, including repairs.” California’s
Superior Court in Los Angeles County upheld Brown’s complaint, after which
Brown warned California employers “that if they cheat California workers out
of their legally entitled employee benefits according to California state law—
‘we’re coming after you’” (Howard Law 2010).
At the same time the Coalition was making progress in California, the
National Employment Law Project launched research on the misclassification of
port truck drivers. The work culminated in two reports—The Big Rig (Smith,
Bensman and Marvy 2010), and a follow-up study, The Big Rig Overhaul (Smith,
Marvy, and Zerolnick 2014), documenting how most port truck drivers were mis-
classified as “independent operators” when they were, according to the relevant
labor and employment laws, actually employees whose rights were ignored by
trucking companies and government regulatory agencies. The reports fueled an
IBT/Change-to-Win campaign against misclassification throughout the nation.
In New Jersey, the campaign persuaded the Legislature to pass a bill revising the
state’s labor and employment laws by making explicit that formal guidelines
should be used to judge whether or not port truckers were employees. However,
after the Legislature passed the bill, Gov. Christie vetoed it.
Nevertheless, the campaign against misclassification continued to rack up
numerous victories. Between the publication of the two Big Rig reports, up to
400 complaints were filed with the California Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement for wage theft associated with misclassification (Smith, Marvy, and
Zerolnick 2014). In one representative case, seven drivers working for Pacer
Cartage were awarded $2.2 million for “unlawful deductions, reimbursable busi-
ness expenses, interest, waiting time penalties and attorney fees” (TruckingInfo
2014). The hearing officer in the case declared that “The defendant considered
the plaintiffs to be independent contractors; however, the amount of control
exhibited by the defendant over the plaintiffs was to such a degree that the
defendant knew or should have known that the plaintiffs were employees”
(TruckingInfo 2014). Further, there have been more than 115 official rulings
since 2011 regarding the misclassification of port truckers, with state and federal
courts and agencies concluding that the port drivers meet the criteria of employ-
ees rather than independent contractors (Smith, Marvy, and Zerolnick 2014;
Smith 2015). The mounting legal violations are stimulating action at all govern-
ment levels. “By treating employee drivers as independent contractors, port
trucking companies are violating a host of state and federal labor and tax laws,
including provisions related to wage and hour standards, income taxes, unem-
ployment insurance, organizing, collective bargaining, and workers’
compensation” (Smith, Marvy, and Zerolnick, 2014, 4) Most recently, the Los
70 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

Angeles County Board of Supervisors opened an investigation about how it

could be more rigorous in regulating work conditions in the local drayage indus-
try (Smith 2015).
On the federal level, the Federal District Court for Central California rein-
forced the truckers’ local victories on September 30, 2014 by rejecting the
request of a trucking company, Shippers’ Transport Express, to dismiss a com-
plaint filed by port truckers citing seven causes of legal action including failure
to pay minimum wage, failure to reimburse for business expenses, unlawful coer-
cion, failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements, and unfair business
practices. The Court’s decision cleared the way for Shippers’ drivers to claim
their rights as employees (United States District Court 2014).
This was followed by another legal victory when a San Diego Superior
Court upheld the $2 million award to employees of Pacer Cartage who had been
“improperly misclassified as independent owner operators” (Rosenberg 2015).
Emboldened by their victories in state regulatory bodies and in the courts,
Southern California port drivers have been taking labor actions aimed at organ-
izing for collective bargaining. In the fall of 2013, Los Angeles port drivers for
Green Fleet Systems, Pac 9 Transportation and American Logistics Interna-
tional struck. In the Spring of 2014, the Teamsters supported a 48-hour work
stoppage at LA/Long Beach by drivers for four trucking companies to address
wage theft, workers’ rights, and misclassification. They were joined by drivers at
the Port of Savannah who were also protesting their status as independent con-
tractors. The campaign escalated in the summer of 2014, when port drivers in
LA engaged in a wider work stoppage with Pac 9 Transportation, Green Fleet
Services, and Total Transportation Services that temporarily shut down three
Marine Terminals including Evergreen Container Terminal, one of the port’s
largest, as longshore workers walked off the job in support. Unlike prior strikes,
that had been scheduled to last 48 hours, this strike was open-ended (Bradbury
2014). Four months later, drivers struck what ultimately became eight trucking
companies. This action occurred at the same time as the shipping industry and
the West Coast longshoremen’s union, the ILWU, were in the midst of tense
negotiations, while containers were piling up on the docks. As a result of these
coordinated actions, all eight trucking companies agreed to formal talks for
resolving the issue of misclassification (Bensman 2014a).
Together, the IBT/Change to Win campaign’s legal victories, and its escalat-
ing mobilizations bore fruit in the winter of 2015 when Shippers Transport, Inc.,
recognizing that a resounding defeat in District Court was impending, recognized
its drivers as employees. The union quickly signed up members, won recognition
with an 80 percent vote, and bargained a contract approved by a 65-5 vote. The
agreement included an hourly wage boost of three dollars an hour, to twenty-one
dollars, overtime pay, full medical insurance, a defined benefit pension plan, paid
holiday and sick leave, and a union grievance procedure (Rosenberg 2015.).
And then the Teamsters unveiled a new strategy to clinch its transformation
of drayage, in April 2015, following another strike at the southern California
ports. After the drayage firm Green Fleet announced that it would reclassify its
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 71

drivers as employees, and negotiate a contract with the Teamsters—an action

that the courts had all but forced the company to take—the Teamsters
announced that L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti would hold a press conference. Sur-
rounded by representatives from the Teamsters and Change-to-Win, and Alex
Paz, a port driver leader, as well as by executives of a drayage firm, the Mayor
announced the formation of a new company that would revolutionize the indus-
try. With capital raised by a private equity firm that owned one drayage com-
pany, Ecoflow Transportation would employ drivers, acknowledge their right to
organize, operate with a union contract, buy new trucks, and introduce techno-
logical and operational innovations that would enable it to compete with compa-
nies paying much less. With help from the Teamsters and port truckers fighting
misclassification, Ecoflow would recruit 600 drivers during a period when its
much-smaller competitors were suffering a driver shortage. The age of wage
theft in port trucking was over, Garcetti announced (Watt 2015).

Labor Action in Warehouse/Distribution Center Sector

In 2009, Warehouse Workers United launched a campaign to improve con-

ditions for what is now one of the fastest growing sectors of the logistics indus-
try. The goals were a living wage, ending the use of temporary staffing,
providing health benefits, and allowing workers to organize a union. The effort
was focused on the Inland Empire, east of the ports of Los Angeles and Long
Beach (see Bonacich and De Lara 2009). Several high-profile events and media
reports followed, drawing attention to conditions in the industry and region
(Arrieta 2009; Meyerson 2009). A second group, Warehouse Workers for
Justice, emerged in Illinois to build solidarity among W/DC workers, in metro
Chicago, a logistics hub (Bybee 2009). A third front in the campaign to trans-
form the W/DC industry began in 2011, after the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) won an election to represent produc-
tion workers at an Ikea-owned plant in Danville, Va. This was followed by
organizing Ikea workers in Maryland and Georgia W/DCs (Vail 2012).
Walmart’s W/DC workers are also on the offensive. Joined by the Team-
sters and United Food and Commercial Workers, Walmart warehouse workers
have marched and struck at warehouse and store locations as well as at the Wal-
mart world headquarters. There, they presented petitions and talked with execu-
tives about wages, working conditions, and anti-union intimidation (Moberg
2013; Slaughter 2012).
On the legal front, in a significant case, Warehouse Workers United filed
suit in 2011 against Schneider Logistics and two staffing agencies—Premier
Warehousing Ventures and Impact Logistics—for oppressive working condi-
tions and subminimum wages at W/DCs operated for Walmart in Mira Loma,
California (Fowler 2012; Medina 2012; Weil 2014). The three firms were fined a
total of $1 million for the violations. More recently, Schneider paid $21 million
to settle a broader class action brought by 1,800 warehouse workers who
charged illegal underpayment based on piece-rate and noncompensated time
72 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

on the job, denial of required overtime compensation, and retaliation for filing
a complaint. Noteworthy in the latter case was that Walmart, given its direct
hand in the warehouse operations as well as the terms and conditions of
employment of workers, was designated a joint employer (See Milam-Perez
2014). By linking responsibility for working conditions to the lead firm in the
subcontracting-outsourcing cascade, this case established a precedent that may
fuel future efforts of W/DC workers. As Weil (2014, 203) has outlined, this
could encourage lead companies to “choose to keep employment inside the
organization” or, if they continue outsourcing-subcontracting arrangements,
“they might do so with greater scrutiny in the selection, monitoring, and coor-
dination of those subordinate organizations given their heightened
responsibility.” The National Labor Relations Board’s ruling on August 25,
2015, that Browning Ferris Industries was a joint employer with Leadpoint, a
staffing agency that hired workers at a recycling plant, suggests that companies
may find it more difficult in future to shed their employment responsibilities
(National Labor Relations Board 2015).
The National Law Employment Project (Cho et al. 2012; Smith, Bensman
and Marvy 2010; Smith, Marvy, and Zerolnick 2014) and Warehouse Workers
for Justice (WWJ 2010) have conducted studies on working conditions in the
drayage and W/DC industries. WWJ recommends pathways to establish sta-
ble work, including permanent employment, regular hours, and living wages.
This could be facilitated through incentives and taxpayer support to firms that
institute fair policies. Labor regulations could also be established and
enforced, particularly as they apply to temporary/day labor and fair compen-
sation procedures. These should include eliminating illegal barriers to the
right to organize and engage in collective bargaining. With regard to the
Walmart-style of outsourcing and subcontracting logistics services and staff-
ing, NELP (Cho et al. 2012) recommend not only aggressive enforcement of
labor laws but the adoption of innovative laws requiring transparency in con-
tracting relations, holding the supply chain head responsible for both condi-
tions and violations, and establishing a code of ethics for contractors and
subcontractors.
In New Jersey, the New Labor Worker Center focuses on regulating staffing
agencies, which provide labor to the warehouses and distribution centers pro-
cessing the containers unloaded at regional ports. Armed with the research of
Gonos and Martino (2010), and Rowe (2012), New Labor joined with commu-
nity organizations to prevail on the municipal government of New Brunswick to
regulate the agencies; those that are found guilty either in court or by the state
Department of Labor of wage theft, including, “not paying for all hours worked,
not paying at least the minimum wage, or not paying overtime” can be denied
renewal of operating licenses. After New Brunswick adopted this legislation in
2013, the township of Princeton followed suit in 2014 (Kalet 2014).
In Southern California, Warehouse Workers United (WWU) organized a
worker center in 2011, and immediately began documenting unsafe working
conditions. Working with UCLA’s Labor Occupational Safety and Health
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 73

program, they trained warehouse workers to conduct a survey. Their report,

“Shattered Dreams and Broken Bodies,” documented pervasive safety problems,
including not only numerous injuries, but also dangerous chemical exposures.
Furthermore, the report highlighted warehouse managers’ practices of not
reporting injuries to state agencies (Warehouse Workers United and D Corne-
lio 2011). In January, 2012, the California Division of Occupational Safety and
Health issued “$256,445 in citations for more than sixty violations found during
an inspection of warehouses in Chino, California, including excessive heat, dan-
gerous forklifts and other machinery, unsafe stacking of boxes, and lack of health
and safety training” (Warehouse Workers United). WWU’s campaign was rein-
forced by subsequent research by the University of Southern California, the
University of California at Riverside, and the National Employment Law Pro-
ject (Cho et al. 2012; DeLara 2013, University of California at Riverside Policy
Matters 2012).
The attack on safety problems was just the opening salvo. Since then,
WWU filed suits against numerous logistics companies. The previously-
discussed $21 million settlement with Schneider Logistics, was the biggest vic-
tory (Milam-Perez 2014).
In the Chicago metro area, near the extensive rail yards, Warehouse Work-
ers for Justice joined with local scholars to expose working conditions. The 2010
report, “Bad Jobs in Goods Movement: Warehouse Work in Will County,
Illinois,” documented contracted temporary jobs and unsafe work conditions
similar to those in Southern California and New Jersey. Organizing by the
Warehouse Workers for Justice, in conjunction with community organizations
and by the faith-based organization, Interfaith Worker Justice, prompted the
Cook County government to adopt a wage-theft ordinance in 2015 (Caldarone
2015).

Discussion and Conclusion

Scholars of organization, work, and labor would be well-advised to “follow

the goods.” Not only will they discover under-analyzed areas of organizational
and workplace dynamics, but they will find sources of shifting labor market prac-
tices linked to large-scale global processes. Situated between production and
consumption are workers who toil in the transportation and distribution of com-
modities. The pressure on companies to reduce logistics labor costs, so that the
price advantage of offshoring is not lost in the movement of goods, provides an
entry point for analyzing organizational and labor practices which are emblem-
atic of the growing terrain of precarious labor.
More specifically, analysis of the drayage and W/DC segments of the inter-
modal logistics supply chain reveals contrasting employer strategies to reduce
costs and enhance flexibility. Both strategies have ensured precariousness and
forestalled labor organization. For port truck drivers, misclassification is central to
their precarious work status and inability to organize and bargain. For the W/
DC workers, the core issue is outsourcing/subcontracting, which insulates the lead
74 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

companies from responsibility for labor conditions in the W/DCs that process
and distribute their goods. Labor actions by workers in these sectors have relied
on a range of strategies, from walkouts and slowdowns to coalition building with
existing labor unions, environmental groups, and academic research institutes,
and to legal challenges based on the violation of labor laws. On the latter front,
class action suits against transportation firms as well as state/federal legislation
and legal enforcement actions taken against logistics subcontractors and labor
recruitment firms, which hold the lead companies accountable, have the poten-
tial to address the precariousness. Together, these efforts have won significant
gains for workers in particular locations. Ultimately, national standards should
be established and enforced.
More generally, future prospects for enhancing the bargaining power of
logistics workers are linked to the fact that supply chains are dependent not only
on low costs but also on moving goods quickly. Once containerized cargo arrives
at a port, it is vital, given the “just in time” supply-chain system, to move it
quickly and efficiently, This imperative provides labor with a strategic opportu-
nity to exercise power. As Silver observes, “Transport workers have possessed
and continue to possess relatively strong workplace bargaining power. This is
especially clear after we conceptualize their workplace as the entire network in
which they are enmeshed. Thus, the source of the workplace bargaining power
is to be found less in the direct impact of their actions on immediate (often pub-
lic) employers and more on the upstream/downstream impact of the failure to
deliver goods, services, and people to their destinations”(Silver 2003, 100). The
desire by capital to ensure stability and certainty in the movement of cargo works
to the advantage of labor, which is able to exercise “interdependent power”
(Piven 2006).
This logic has led observers to describe ports as nodal chokepoints in global
commodity chains (Bonacich 2003) where labor engages in disruptive action
that can cripple the global movement of commodities. Lund and Wright (2003)
have explored how the tight integration of supply chains, using information
technologies, poses both threats to and opportunities for union bargaining
power. As they note, the sequential interdependence of the intermodal system
has “the potential for a shut-down or stoppage of one enterprise to have a
domino-like effect throughout the broader supply chain potentially wreaking
havoc within and across industries.” (103). As an example they point to the
United Parcel Service strike of 1997 which was enabled by the dependence of
the powerful company on the compliance and cooperation of subordinate classes
and groups. This model of disruption has a long history of successfully advanc-
ing progressive social change (Piven 2006). The port truckers’ strikes of 2014 in
Los Angeles and Long Beach are a recent example. Amidst the port congestion
that slowed goods movement during the ILWU/shippers’ negotiations in the
winter of 2014-5, these strikes proved effective at forcing employers to talk with
the Teamsters and striking truck drivers.
As workers organize to resist company efforts to divest themselves of the
responsibilities of employment, they are converting latent sources of power
JAFFEE and BENSMAN: DRAYING AND PICKING 75

based on strategic location into progress in the courts, in legislatures, and at bar-
gaining tables. As unions and worker centers bring workers together, the latter
are becoming more aware of their rights and more conscious of their ability to
disrupt the flow of commerce. Unions’ successes coalescing with environmental-
ists, community organizations, workers’ centers, and faith-based organizations
are changing the way labor is strategizing to craft public policies aimed at
enhancing the common good, rather than simply at increasing union rights
(Loomis 2015). These trends indicate that increasing precarity at work is not
inevitable. There are signs in these two industries that collective bargaining can
be reinstated, regulatory enforcement can be reinvigorated, and labor and
employment laws can be revised to meet the challenges posed by shifting busi-
ness strategies and new technologies.
The fact that W/DC employees joined port truckers on strike against com-
mon employers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at the end of Octo-
ber, 2015 (Gorman 2015) suggests that the logistics sector is emerging as a
central location for this countermovement against precarious work in the neo-
liberal political economy (Bensman 2014b).

David Jaffee is professor in the department of Sociology, Anthropology, and

Social Work, University of North Florida.

David Bensman is professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employ-

ment Relations, Rutgers University, SMLR, New Brunswick, NJ. USA. Address
correspondence to David Jaffee and David Bensman: Emails: [email protected]
and [email protected]

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