Class Struggle/Supply Chains, Seattle, December 28

Class Struggle Along Global Supply Chains, Part III

December 28, 2013, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Black Coffee Coop

One of the forms in which the working class exists today is at the various nodal points along commodity chains. Global production is based on a systems of “factories without walls,” where components are manufactured using an inventory-less subcontracting system that scours the globe for the “leanest” costs of production – especially cheap and compliant labor. Yet these just-in-time chains are vulnerable and this presentation identifies the nodes where class struggle offers the greatest possibility for solidarity to spread down supply chains – and across oceans and borders.

Empire-Logistics.org was designed to be a platform for mapping the goods movement infrastructure and documenting strikes and other militant actions within its many distribution nodes. These maps become strategic tools that reveal class interests common to a geographically-dispersed but materially-connected global working class. This presentation will focus on logistics hubs, especially West Coast container ports in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Oakland and Los Angeles/Long Beach -- and grain ports along the Columbia River and Puget Sound, to show the usefulness of the Empire Logistics project for mapping the geography of struggle and facilitating militant action across the region -- and beyond. Connections will be drawn between textile worker strikes in Egypt, bread riots worldwide in 2008, the Arab Spring, Occupy West Coast port shutdowns in 2011, strikes by Hong Kong dockers, troquero wildcats, and the attacks on longshore workers at Columbia River grain ports. An open discussion will follow.

Hosted by The Commoners' Club

Black Coffee Coop
501 E Pine Street Seattle (map)