Positioning Labour in Service Value Chains and Networks: The Case of Parcel Delivery

Divide and Serve: The Labour Process in Service Value Chains and Networks

“…From a service partner's view it is not viable to provide this service employing people in standard employment relationships under the given economic circumstances of doing business. As a result, the service partners have partially replicated the general contractor's strategy and subcontract services (to self-employed people) (Haidinger, 2012).…”

“…While from a functional perspective the delivery process is thus strongly integrated on the basis of ICT and under close control by the transnational logistics firms, the organizational structures and the emerging social relations result in an individualized, informalized and thus highly vulnerable position of the workers as the small- and medium-sized providers in parcel delivery are locked into extreme price and cost competition and pass on the cost pressures and the flexibility demands (Haidinger, 2012).…”

Logistical geographies

“…As Jaffee and Bensman (2016:58) note: “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 externalization of costs, which is reflected in the working conditions, arrangements, and compensation of logistics workers.” Second, these dynamics are amplified by the fierce intra‐sector competition between layers of subcontracted transport and logistics providers of different types (Haidinger & Flecker, 2015). Third, precarity is also generated by the requirements for temporal and numerical flexibility that are inherent to Just‐In‐Time production and distribution systems (Gutelius, 2016).…”

“…In terms of the power resources vocabulary of labour geography/studies, the workplace bargaining power that accrues to workers by virtue of their position at strategic “choke points” (Alimahomed‐Wilson & Ness, 2018) in commodity flows is generally offset and negated by (a) weak associational power (low levels of collective organising) and (b) low levels of marketplace bargaining power (their position in the labour market is heavily segmented and mediated through staffing agencies) (Sowers, 2017). In the case of parcel delivery, for example, Haidinger and Flecker (2015) discuss how the multiple layers of subcontracting, routine use of technology for labour surveillance/control, dispersed workplace settings, and reluctance of unions to organise couriers serve to restrict labour agency. Relatedly, in their discussion of the potential for “logical resistance” of different kinds, Folkers and Stenmanns (2019) profile how the importance of maintaining circulation means that corporate and state actors—such as banks, port authorities and city and state officials—may work together to preserve the flow of goods in what they term “private‐public security partnerships.” While workers and their collaborators may “make visible” these relationships through various forms of protest, making long‐term gains is much harder.…”

Soziologie in Österreich – Internationale Verflechtungen

“…Die Vertrags-und Machtbeziehungen zwischen den Firmen legen einen großen Teil der Arbeits-und Beschäftigungsbedingungen fest (vgl. Marchington 2005, Dunkel/Schönauer 2012, Thompson et al 2015, Haidinger/Flecker 2015. Als drittes Beispiel lassen sich die Ansätze der GVCs und GPNs heranziehen, die als mittlere Ebene zwischen dem unmittelbaren Arbeitsprozess und der globalen kapitalistischen Ökonomie verstanden werden können (vgl.…”