The largest private-sector employers in the United States today are a mix of retail and parcel companies that have all built out sophisticated logistical operations. In the post-war era, the largest employers were all in manufacturing, and warehousing and distribution were both seen merely as supporting long production runs. In 1962, management theorist Peter Drucker referred to distribution as “the economy’s dark continent.”
In a new monthly newsletter column, Benjamin Fong examines the employer behemoths of the twenty-first century—their business models, their management techniques, and the workers and worker organizing that populate their supply chains.
Trucking’s Window of Opportunity
The coming restructuring of US motor carrier logistics
Will the Trump administration, the Supreme Court, and the data center boom bring about a restructuring in motor carrier logistics?
Unstitching America
No private company is logistically capable of delivering the mail. So what does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?
No private company is logistically capable of delivering the mail. So what does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?
Home Depot’s New Last Mile
Home Depot has been on a building and acquisitions spree, rapidly taking over a half-dozen logistics companies. Is it also creating an opportunity for organized...
The Apotheosis of Point of Sale Data
The increasingly complex logistics of Amazon’s same-day delivery expansion—and the labor costs that make it possible.
Overexpectations in e-commerce?
A story told through the clash of the world's two largest corporations by revenue
Is brick-and-mortar retail bound to lose ground to the new portals of infinite choice and doorstep delivery? The picture is more complex than it might...
The Big Ten
How to define a "logistics cluster"
Finding and defining “logistics clusters” across the United States
Labor & Logistics
A new monthly newsletter on the logistics industry in the United States
The largest private-sector employers in the United States today are a mix of retail and parcel companies that have all built out sophisticated logistical operations....