The news these days is full of stories about the supposed supply chain crisis. But those stories come with little to no explanation of what that actually means, and of course the thing generally known as “the supply chain” isn’t a thing at all, but an impossibly complex web of workers and technology that stretches around the world. Today we’re beginning an intermittent series on supply chains, starting with Charmaine Chua, an assistant professor in the University of California Santa Barbara’s Department of Global Studies and a scholar of global logistics systems at work on a book titled Logistics Leviathan: Circulation, Empire, and the TransPacific Supply Chain. She joined us to discuss global shipping, just-in-time manufacturing, and why there’s no normal to get back to.

We also check in on the latest from Bessemer, Alabama, as an NLRB director orders a new union election, and a Board decision that workers have the right to wear “Black Lives Matter” swag on the job. We hear from Zenei Triunfo-Cortez of National Nurses United and Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla of Progressive International about a push from nurses’ unions for global vaccine equity and the latest on the Burgerville workers’ union. For Argh, we consider whether we really need 24-7 shopping, and whether we should be panicking about high wages causing inflation.

First aired on Dissent’s podcast Belabored.

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