Logistics at work : trucks, containers and the friction of circulation in the UK.

Abstract

This paper examines logistics at work, focusing on owner-drivers in the UK container haulage industry. It draws on qualitative research conducted in south-east England in 2013 to show that the just-in-time 24/7/365 delivery required by logistics purchasers, and offered by logistics providers, is achieved in the UK logistics space through drivers displacing work, stretching time and running out of time. The location of owner-drivers in the logistics precariat is established, as is the relationship of financial precarity to the circulation of containers in the UK logistics space. Through focusing on logistics as physical real-time circulation, and not just logistics as power and discipline, the paper demonstrates the importance and effects of the friction of circulation in terrestrial (and maritime) space. It further establishes the effects of precariatisation on logistics labour in UK container haulage. These are: a crisis in labour supply, the Eastern Europeanisation of the sector and increasing pressures to illegal working practices.