Skip to content

Supply Chain

How Israel Is Trying To Beat The ‘Axis Of Resistance’

October 30, 2024 Ahmed Alqarout, Mondoweiss. , , , , , ,
In a recent public address on October 4, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei highlighted for the first time what he described as U.S. and Israeli plans to control the region’s natural resources. He stated that Israel’s current war campaign aims to position Israel as a hub for exporting energy to Europe and importing technology to ensure its survival. Khamenei called for resistance against the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a proposed land bridge connecting India, Saudi, the UAE, Jordan, Israel, and Europe.

Dockworkers On Strike At Ports In New York, New Jersey And Elsewhere

October 1, 2024 Daniel Munoz, NorthJersey.com. , , , , , ,
Dockworkers at ports from Maine to New Jersey to Texas went on strike Tuesday, for the first time since 1977, in a move that some experts say could disrupt the supply chain and billions of dollars worth of products for weeks or more just before the holiday shopping season kicks off. The North Jersey-based International Longshoremen’s Association walked off the job, seeking a big increase in pay, as its last contract expired at midnight Tuesday. The workers also oppose automation at the ports, which poses a threat to their jobs. Striking dockworkers stood at several locations outside the Port of Newark and Port of Elizabeth on Tuesday morning with signs that read "Automation hurts families: ILA stands for job protection." Occasionally someone would drive by honking and holding up a fist in support.

A Port Strike Has Already Hit Canada As US Prepares For Walkouts

September 30, 2024 William Gavin, Yahoo News. , , , , ,
As the U.S. economy prepares for a potentially devastating strike across its East Coast ports, Canada is already dealing with its own. About 320 longshoreman represented by a local affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, began a 72-hour strike on Monday morning, freezing work at two terminals at the Port of Montreal. Those terminals, which are operated by Termont, represent about 40% of the containers that move through the port. The Port of Montreal impacts 37,774 jobs and contributes $2.7 billion to Canada’s economy every year, according to a 2023 study. It also provides more than 2,000 jobs to the U.S. and $145 million in economic benefits.

The End Of Lean Production And What’s Ahead

May 3, 2024 Kim Moody, Labor Notes. , , ,
For three and a half decades, lean management drove the production and movement of goods. But now logistics and manufacturing employers are shifting to a new model. To maximize our leverage, workers should understand it. Lean production, introduced in the 1980s from Japanese automakers, caught on in many U.S. industries. It was a whole bundle of techniques to maximize profit, including ratcheting up workloads and pace to the point of breakdown, and inviting workers to brainstorm ways to increase their own exploitation.

Potential Rail Strike Would Cause Historic Disruption Of Supply Chains

April 2, 2024 Davis Legree, iPolitics. , , , , ,
Workers at Canada’s two largest rail companies are preparing for a strike vote that could have severe ramifications for commercial and passenger transportation across the country. Combined, Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC, formerly CP Rail) own and operate over 75 per cent of the country’s rail network, though those tracks could soon go quiet as ongoing negotiations with the rail workers union have thus far been fruitless. Separate collective bargaining agreements between each respective company and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) union expired at the end of 2023.

Class One Rail Car Loadings Plummet The Last 17 Years

March 26, 2024 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The number of carloads moved by U.S. Class One railroads has dropped dramatically over the course of the past 17 years. In 2006, the Class Ones moved 32.1 million carloads, while in 2023, they moved just 24.4 million, a 24% decline. Statistics are available through the American Association of Railroads (AAR) and Statista. Meantime, these railroads have made exorbitant profits and engaged in massive stock buybacks to boost the price of their shares, at the same time that the workforce has been decimated, customer service has suffered, Amtrak on-time performance has declined, and safety has been downgraded.

BP, Evergreen Suspend Red Sea Tanker Traffic; Yemen Continues Attacks

December 18, 2023 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , , ,
BP said it will pause all its tanker traffic through the Red Sea following an escalation of attacks on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement in response to Israel's brutal bombing campaign in Gaza. “In light of the deteriorating security situation for shipping in the Red Sea, BP has decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea,” the company said in a statement on 18 December. Similarly, Taiwanese container shipping line Evergreen said on Monday that it has decided to temporarily stop accepting Israeli cargo and instructed its container ships to suspend navigation through the Red Sea until further notice.

Railroads Seek Permission For Autonomous Container Car Tests

August 22, 2023 Bill Stephens, Trains.com. , , , ,
Savannah, Ga. — Two Genesee & Wyoming short lines in Georgia today asked the Federal Railroad Administration to allow them to conduct a pilot program that would test Parallel Systems’ zero-emission autonomous container cars. The 211-mile Georgia Central Railway and 233-mile Heart of Georgia Railroad would like to test the battery-electric cars – which can run alone or coupled together as an autonomous train – on portions of their lines beginning next year. “GC and HOG believe the development and anticipated adoption of this technology has the potential to capture new container business moving to and from the Port of Savannah, as well as reinvigorate traffic on rural rail lines and revive inland ports in Georgia – all while removing trucks from the region’s roads and reducing carbon emissions,” G&W said.

UPS Teamsters Start Strike Authorization Vote

June 8, 2023 Sean Orr and Elliot Lewis, Labor Notes. , , , ,
With the largest private sector labor contract in the United States set to expire on July 31 at midnight, the eyes of the American labor movement are on United Parcel Service (UPS) and the nearly 350,000 Teamsters who work there. The Teamsters announced a UPS strike authorization vote starting this week, with results to be announced June 16. Union leaders are strongly urging a yes vote. “This is how we win,” said Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien. Our contract fight matters for the entire working class. We want workers everywhere—and especially at Amazon and FedEx—to see that organizing a union leads to better pay and working conditions and greater control over their working lives, and opens the door to a better world.

UPS And The Logistics Revolution

May 20, 2023 Teddy Ostrow, The Real News Network. , , ,
The word “logistics” has somewhat of an impersonal ring to it. When you hear it, you think: massive container ships, cranes, eighteen wheelers, aircrafts, conveyor belts, spreadsheets, contracts, and of course, boxes. It’s almost as if all of this infrastructure that moves our goods around the world, around the clock, is running by itself. But undergirding “logistics” is one indispensable element: Workers. Millions of them, without whom the colossal flow of goods and services would come grinding to a halt. In this episode of The Upsurge, we ask how our modern logistics giants, like UPS – and the Teamsters that keep it running – came to wield so much power.

Workers Fight Back On May Day, International Workers’ Day

May 1, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
May 1 is celebrated around the world, and unofficially in the United States, as International Workers' Day. In honor of this, Clearing the FOG speaks with two workers who are fighting for their rights and dignity. SN 'Yeager,' a spokesperson for the Graduate Employees Organization Local 3550, speaks about the conditions that brought them to go on strike at the University of Michigan (now in its sixth week), the tremendous outpouring of support for their struggle and how the University is retaliating against them. Billy Randel of the Truckers Movement for Justice, which is holding a day-long protest at the Department of Transportation today, speaks about the difficulties truckers are facing in the US and their demands that all workers are paid for all hours worked and greater transparency in the industry.

ILWU Alums Tackle Labor Power And Strategy Questions

February 28, 2023 Steve Early, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Workers in the logistics industry often make headlines when their handling of goods is disrupted by pandemic conditions or labor conflicts. Thanks to global supply chains, many consumer products are now manufactured in one country, shipped by sea, rail, or air to another country, unloaded and trucked to huge distribution centers (aka “warehouses”), and then delivered to retail store chains or directly to customers at home by on-line retailers like Amazon. When workers in any one link in this supply chain have a fight with their boss—on the docks, at a trucking company or railroad, or even in a single newly organized warehouse—their chances of winning are greater if they occupy a strategic “choke point” or can enlist labor allies, at home or abroad, who do.

New Report: The Attraction Of Agroecology

August 19, 2022 Land Workers' Alliance. , , ,
Based on findings from transdisciplinary research and drawing on interviews with eleven different new entrant case studies, this report encourages the governments of UK nations to recognise and act upon the urgent need to focus their support for new entrants into farming on breakingfood down the real barriers to entry for agroecological, short supply chain land-based enterprises. The report shows that agroecological farming and land work is an attractive sector, and investing in routes into agroecology for new entrants has the potential to both rejuvenate and diversify the farming and food production sector, while also helping governments to meet their food, climate and green recovery commitments.

Corporate Billionaires Are Wrecking The Supply Chain

July 8, 2022 Mel Buer, The Real News Network. , , ,
Before these past two years, if you were polling passersby on the street, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone ready to admit that they were seriously concerned about the supply chain. You’d be hard pressed, for that matter, to find many who could describe what the supply chain actually is (present company included). That is certainly not the case today. From shortages—and correspondingly high costs—of groceries and consumer goods like baby formula and sunflower oil to medical devices, “supply chain issues” have become a pronounced source of anxiety and frustration for consumers, workers, businesses, and politicians alike.

Shipping Chaos Is The Latest Sign That Capitalism Is Eating Itself

June 7, 2022 Grace Blakeley, Tribune Magazine. , ,
Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager, recently wrote in his letter to shareholders that globalization as we know it is over. The war in Ukraine, he argues, marks a turning point in the world economy—though the momentum of globalization had been slowing for many years.   Fink’s pronouncement caused a stir among the international capitalist class. The Financial Times featured an editorial opining that ‘global capital has, for the past 40 years or so, flown too far ahead of national economies, creating stresses and inequalities within many nations.’ FT journalists, of course, have been some of the greatest cheerleaders of this process, which made the conclusion all the more striking. But before we decide whether globalization is over, it’s worth considering what it actually amounts to. I
«12»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.