HomeTruths: Domestic Workers in California

Domestic workers play a significant role in the California economy, yet these workers are vulnerable to substandard employment because their work is both invisible and largely excluded from employment protections. Nannies, caregivers, and housecleaners, hired directly by their employers, are not subject to a range of protections that apply to other workers. They are excluded from the federal right to organize and bargain collectively and health and safety law. Many are also excluded from workers' compensation, rights to overtime pay and meal and rest breaks, and anti-discrimination laws.The work of nannies, housecleaners, and caregivers is notoriously difficult to document because of the hidden nature of the work, and it is this isolation that renders domestic workers vulnerable to substandard working conditions. In part to address the lack of systematic data on domestic work and workers, the National Domestic Worker Survey was conducted in 14 cities. The sample analyzed in this report includes 631 domestic workers in four metropolitan areas in California: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose

Disarticulating distribution: Labor segmentation and subcontracting in global logistics

An enduring focus of scholarly work on global production networks (GPNs) is the process of insertion into production networks and the capacity of places to shape their manner of inclusion. Sometimes overlooked are ways in which these insertions are based on an evolving set of exclusions. A disarticulations perspective trains our attention on the mutual interplay between moments of inclusion and exclusion that produce uneven geographies and histories of development, foregrounding place-specific factors and offering a framework for understanding local experimentation. Firms continue to restructure under relentless pressure to improve performance and the concomitant need to experiment, causing firm strategy to shape-shift and re-making relations of inclusion and exclusion. In the distribution function of global supply chains, the prevailing value-creation strategy is downward pressure on the cost of labor, but this perhaps suggests a false sense of stability. Using data gathered in the distribution hub just outside of Chicago, I examine the role of labor market intermediaries in re-negotiating the boundaries of inclusion. This article explores processes of linking and delinking subsets of workers and the differential implications for worker segments and their attachment to the supply chain. Inscribed in the absorption of places and workers into GPNs are ongoing processes of disarticulation, evident in this case through the labor market strategies pursued by local firms and temporary staffing agencies. These processes lay bare the mechanisms that reproduce capital-labor relationships in global supply chains

War on Terror and Social Networks in Mali

How the US has chosen to carry out and rhetoricize its War on Terror with the Malian government has had important consequences for the political and economic stability of northern Mali. Pre-existing political and economic disparities have grown since 2002, spurring deeper social and cultural shifts and bringing a group of young, reformist Muslim intellectuals to leadership roles in new kinds of community-based organizations. The author explores these processes and their implications for social networks and corporate identity in Malian society north of the Niger Bend

War on Terror and Social Networks in Mali

How the US has chosen to carry out and rhetoricize its War on Terror with the Malian government has had important consequences for the political and economic stability of northern Mali. Pre-existing political and economic disparities have grown since 2002, spurring deeper social and cultural shifts and bringing a group of young, reformist Muslim intellectuals to leadership roles in new kinds of community-based organizations. The author explores these processes and their implications for social networks and corporate identity in Malian society north of the Niger Bend

Disarticulating distribution: Labor segmentation and subcontracting in global logistics

An enduring focus of scholarly work on global production networks (GPNs) is the process of insertion into production networks and the capacity of places to shape their manner of inclusion. Sometimes overlooked are ways in which these insertions are based on an evolving set of exclusions. A disarticulations perspective trains our attention on the mutual interplay between moments of inclusion and exclusion that produce uneven geographies and histories of development, foregrounding place-specific factors and offering a framework for understanding local experimentation. Firms continue to restructure under relentless pressure to improve performance and the concomitant need to experiment, causing firm strategy to shape-shift and re-making relations of inclusion and exclusion. In the distribution function of global supply chains, the prevailing value-creation strategy is downward pressure on the cost of labor, but this perhaps suggests a false sense of stability. Using data gathered in the distribution hub just outside of Chicago, I examine the role of labor market intermediaries in re-negotiating the boundaries of inclusion. This article explores processes of linking and delinking subsets of workers and the differential implications for worker segments and their attachment to the supply chain. Inscribed in the absorption of places and workers into GPNs are ongoing processes of disarticulation, evident in this case through the labor market strategies pursued by local firms and temporary staffing agencies. These processes lay bare the mechanisms that reproduce capital-labor relationships in global supply chains

Pandemic-Related Trends in Warehouse Technology Adoption

The pandemic’s myriad effects on the U.S. economy will be the subject of research and attention for many years to come. In this report, we delve into some of the pandemic’s impacts by focusing on one question: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect technology adoption in U.S. warehouses