Unpacking global Amazon : labor, work, and community in e-commerce warehousing and distribution / edited by Scott B. Martin (part-time associate professor, graduate programs in international affairs, New School for Social Research, USA and adjunct assistant professor, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA), João Paulo Veiga (professor of political science, Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and Institute of International Relations (IRI), University of São Paulo, Brazil), Katiuscia Moreno Galhera (visiting professor, Faculty of Humanities, Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, Brazil) and Nikko Bilitza (researcher, European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna, Austria).

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Martin, Scott B., editor.

Veiga, João Paulo Candia, editor.

Moreno Galhera, Katiuscia, editor.

Bilitza, Nikko, editor.

Edward Elgar Publishing, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Amazon.com (Firm).

Electronic commerce.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 pages)

Place of Publication:

Northampton : Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026.

Summary:

"Positioning Amazon as a key actor reshaping business and labor paradigms in the digitized global economy, this book examines its relationship with labor markets and institutions worldwide. Tracing the company's expansion over three-plus decades and controversies particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic based on fresh fieldwork, expert contributors demonstrate how Amazon shapes, and is re-shaped by, its various locations through regulation, conflict, and competition. Leading scholars examine the complex interplay of Amazon's encounters with markets, institutions, and actors in national and subnational settings. They analyze the consequences of fast-paced, low-skilled labor mandates against the backdrop of fierce resistance from union and civil society campaigners and local competitors. Chapters contribute to key debates, evaluating Amazon's history of anti-union behavior and increasingly algorithmically driven management. Drawing on empirical research, the book assesses union and community efforts and regulatory initiatives that seek to contest and contain the social impacts of a warehousing and delivery system built on speed, worker exploitation, and refashioning economic geographies around immediate one-click consumerism. An essential resource for understanding the global infrastructure of increasingly digitized multinational tech corporations, this book is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of business management, economics, political economy, human rights, and labour policy. E-commerce and NGO professionals, as well as policymakers, will similarly benefit from its timely and practical discussion of advocacy approaches and policy controversies"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Contents: Introduction: problematizing "global Amazon," the organization of e-commerce and its labor and social discontents / Scott B. Martin, João Paulo Veiga, Katiuscia Moreno Galhera and Nikko Bilitza

1. Mapping the contours of "global Amazon" amid the variegations of contemporary capitalism / Scott B. Martin, João Paulo Veiga, Katiuscia Moreno Galhera and Nikko Bilitza

Part I: Anti-Unionism's Encounters With Diverse Local Contexts

2. (Dis)organizing labor: a comparative historical overview of Amazon's anti-union strategies in Western Europe / Francesco S. Massimo

3. Navigating and instrumentalizing the uneven development of Europe: Amazon's German market as a case of (trans)national capital-labor struggles / Sarrah Kassem

4. Work organization and labor relations at Amazon warehouses in Brazil and Mexico: diffusion and reconstitution of global models / Scott B. Martin, Katiuscia Moreno Galhera and João Paulo Veiga

Part II: Labor Regimes At Amazon: Algorithms, Coercion, And Consent

5. Amazon's fragile neoliberal Fordism and the challenges for labor organizing in Canada / Mostafa Henaway

6. Appropriation of the General Intellect: Amazon warehouses in Greater Mexico City / José Cerón

7. The cyborg manager: enforcing speed through the administration of fear / Tom Vickers, Ricky Gee, Dominic Holland and David Dahill

Part III: Labor Organizing And Activism: Comparative And Transnational Perspectives

8. Challenging the giant: opportunities and barriers to union organizing and labor protests in Amazon Poland / Adam Mrozowicki, Szymon Pilch and Olga Gitkiewicz

9. Belated upsurges in hostile contexts: labor contention at Amazon in the US and India in comparative and transnational perspective / Scott B. Martin

10. Labor relations in the last mile sector of Amazon Brazil: platforms, neo-Toyotism, and outsourcing / Katiuscia Moreno Galhera, Neusa Maria Dal Ri, Karina Pinhô and Rebecca Ruz̕

11. Making Amazon pay: organizing Amazon workers must be synonymous with the fight against oligarchy and income inequality / Rand Wilson and Peter Olney

Part IV: Challenges From Market Competitors And Subnational Regulation

12. Mercado Libre: the Amazon of Latin America? / Sonia Filipetto and Gabriela Pontoni

13. Social movement coalitions and the struggle for regulation: the spatial politics of e-commerce logistics in Greater New York City / Scott B. Martin and Nikko Bilitza

14. Concluding reflections: the ongoing quest to tame Amazon's platform power / Scott B. Martin, João Paulo Veiga, Katiuscia Moreno Galhera and Nikko Bilitza.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print record.

ISBN:

9781035380459 (e-book)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.