Power resources and the last-mile problem in logistics: reflections on a Swiss labour struggle

Abstract

We analyse a struggle by logistics workers in the ‘last mile' in Switzerland. Although logistics, a low-wage sector employing a precarious workforce, is not an easy sector to organise in, mobilisations have recently stimulated research into the potential to take advantage of ‘choke points' to build labour's power. To engage with this claim, we draw on the power resources approach (PRA), as well as on literature exploring the Amazonification of logistics. Our research follows the conricerca method of workers’ inquiry. The attempt to force the lead logistics firm DPD to recognise the workers' collective paradoxically resulted in a negotiation for a sectoral agreement that excluded the union chosen by the workers. Our research contributes to the scholarship on worker resistance under digital capitalism and to the critique of the PRA. We show that the scope for the last mile to constitute a site of successful worker resistance depends on a range of factors that go beyond what the PRA captures. In our case, the limited protection against dismissal for activists has severely curtailed the use of structural power. The critical importance of organising a militant group of workers is starkly illustrated by the firm's efforts to undermine them.