Dr. Jake Wilson, Professor

Email: jake.wilson@csulb.edu
Office: PSY-132
Phone: (562) 985-7379
Pronouns: he/him/his

Research Interests:

• Logistics, Ports, Warehouses and Supply Chains; Race, Racism, and Labor/Work; Racialized-Gendered Divisions in the Working-Class and Labor Process; Transnational Labor Movements and Unions; Global Workers’ Struggles; Global Capitalism and Political Economy; E-commerce’s (Amazon’s) Impact on Work/Labor; The Gig Economy and Platform and App-based Work; Surveillance of Workers; Automation, Technology, and the Future of Work; Whiteness, Gender, Masculinities and Labor.

Main Courses:

• Introduction to Sociology (Soc. 100)
• Modern Sociological Theory (Soc. 357)
• Environmental Sociology (Soc. 410)
• Labor & Social Justice Internships (CLA 492)

Education:

• A.A., Mount San Antonio College
• B.S. (magna cum laude), Conservation & Resource Studies, UC Berkeley
• M.A., Ph.D., Sociology, UC Riverside

Overview of Research: 

• Dr. Jake Alimahomed-Wilson’s research explores the ways that racism and labor exploitation intersect. He is particularly interested in the global logistics industry and the workers who move goods around the world. His current research examines the impact of e-commerce (i.e. Amazon) on work and labor.
• His newest co-edited (with Ellen Reese) book, The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, was released in 2020 by Pluto Press (Wildcat Series). This book provides a rich and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays by scholars, activists, and labor and community organizers that interrogates the global significance of Amazon’s rise and the growing popular resistance to it around the world.  
  • Overview of The Cost of Free Shipping – Amazon is the most powerful corporation on the planet and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, has become the richest person in world history. Its dominance has reshaped consumer expectations and the global economy itself: we live in the age of ‘Amazon Capitalism’. ‘One-click’ instant consumerism and the immense variety of available products have made Amazon a worldwide household name, with over 60% of US households subscribing to Amazon Prime. In turn, these subscribers are thoroughly surveilled by the corporation as they turn over their private information to Amazon’s databases. Going beyond e-commerce, Amazon is also one of the largest logistics companies in the world, changing the way goods are manufactured and distributed, resulting in weakened unions and lowered labor standards. More recently, Amazon has also become the world’s largest provider of cloud-computing services and home surveillance systems, not to mention the ubiquitous Alexa. With a wide variety of cutting-edge analyses, this book looks at the many dark facets of the corporation, including automation, surveillance, tech work, racism, workers’ struggles, algorithmic challenges, the disruption of local democracy and much more. The Cost of Free Shipping shows how Amazon represents a fundamental shift in global capitalism that we should name, interrogate and be primed to resist. Book reviews of The Cost of Free Shipping can be found here, here, and here.
• Dr. Wilson currently serves on the Executive Board (Full Professor Representative) for the California Faculty Association (Long Beach Chapter) and serves on the Advisory Committee of CSUDH’s Labor Studies Program.
• During the Spring 2018 semester, he taught courses on “Global Workers” and “Environmental Sociology” to CSU students in London at University College London. He serves on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Labor and Society and the Journal of Social Justice.

Books:

• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Ellen Reese (eds.). 2020. The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy. London, UK: Pluto Press.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Immanuel Ness (eds.). 2018. Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain. London, UK: Pluto Press.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2016. Solidarity Forever? Race, Gender, and Unionism in the Ports of Southern California. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
• Edna Bonacich and Jake B. Wilson. 2008. Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Articles, book chapters, & other publications:

• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. Forthcoming. “The World is a Warehouse: Racialised Labour Regimes and the Rise of Amazon’s Global Logistics Empire.” Labour Regimes and Global Production, edited by Neil Martin Coe, Elena Baglioni, Liam Campling, and Adrian Smith. Agenda Publishing.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake (interview by Tatiana Cozzarelli and Maryam Alaniz). 2021. “Amazonification is the Future of Capitalism.” Left Voice, April 4. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Alimahomed,-Wilson, Jake and Ellen Reese (interview by Jörn Boewe and Johannes Schulten). 2021. “Gespräch: Amazons Kometenhafter Aufstieg ist ein Schlüsselmoment im Globalen Kapitalismus.” [English translation – “Amazon’s Meteoric Rise is a Key Moment in Global Capitalism.”] Luxemburg Magazine: Social Analysis and Left Practice, March 21. 
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. Forthcoming. “La révolution de la e-logistique: e-commerce, travail et retransformation de la chaîne d’approvisionnement de la Californie du Sud.” [English translation: “The E-Logistics Revolution: E-commerce, Labor, and the Re-transformation of the Southern California Supply Chain”] Travail et Emploi.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2021. “Surveillance, Stress, and No Bathrooms: Life as an Amazon Driver.” Labor Notes, February. [Reprint]
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2020. “Building its Own Delivery Network, Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Drivers.” Labor Notes, December 17. [Reprint]
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Ellen Reese. 2020. “Its A Prime Day for Resistance to Amazon’s Ruthless Exploitation of Its Workers,” October 13. Jacobin. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2020. “The Amazonification of Logistics: E-Commerce and the Struggle for the Last Mile.” The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy. London: Pluto Press.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2020. “Racialized Masculinities and Global Logistics Labor.” Into the Black Box: Research on Logistics, Spaces, & Labour. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Alimahomed-Jake, and Ellen Reese. 2020. “Amazon Capitalism: How COVID-19 and Racism Made the World’s Most Powerful Corporation.” Pluto Press Blog. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2019. “Unfree Shipping: The Racialisation of Logistics Labour.” Work Organization, Labour, & Globalisation, 13(1): 96-13. (WOLG Special Issue: Logistical Gazes – Spaces, Labour, & Struggles in Global Capitalism).
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake, Katy Fox-Hodess, and Kim Moody (interview by Chris Browne). 2018. “Seizing the Chokepoints.” Jacobin Magazine. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Spencer Louis Potiker. 2018. “Decolonising Logistics: Palestinian Truckers on the Occupied Supply Chain.” Choke Points: Logistic Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain. London: Pluto Press.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Spencer Louis Potiker. 2017. “The Logistics of Occupation: Israel’s Colonial Suppression of Palestine’s Goods Movement Infrastructure.” Journal of Labor and Society, (20)4: 427-447.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake and Dana Williams. 2016. “State Violence, Social Control, and Resistance.” Journal of Social Justice, 6(1): 1-15.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2013. “Logistics Revolution (in shipping).” SAGE Sociology of Work Encyclopedia, edited by Vicki Smith and Geoffrey Golson.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2012. “Black Longshoremen and the Fight for Equality in an ‘Anti-Racist’ Union.” Race & Class, 53(4): 39-53.
• Bonacich, Edna and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson. 2012. “Headway for African American Workers in South Los Angeles.” In Post-Ghetto: Reimagining South Los Angeles, edited by Josh Sides. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Alimahomed-Wilson, Jake. 2011. “Men Along the Shore: Working-Class Masculinities in Crisis.” Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies, 6(1): 22-44.
• Bonacich, Edna and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson. 2011. “Confronting Racism, Capitalism, and Ecological Degradation: Urban Farming and the Struggle for Social Justice in Black Los Angeles.” Souls, 13(2): 213-226.
• Alimahomed, Sabrina and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson. 2009. “Protest as Embodied State Practices: An Examination of Hegemonic and Counter-Hegemonic Protest Tactics.” Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. [Non-Peer Reviewed]
• Bonacich, Edna, Sabrina Alimahomed, and Jake B. Wilson. 2008. “The Racialization of Global Labor.” American Behavioral Scientist, 52 (3): 342-355.
• Wilson, Jake B. 2008. “The Racialized Picket Line: White Workers and Racism in the Southern California Supermarket Strike.” Critical Sociology, 34 (3): 349-367.
• Bonacich, Edna and Jake B. Wilson. 2005. “Hoisted by its Own Petard: Organizing Wal-Mart’s Logistics Workers.” New Labor Forum, 14 (Summer): 67-75.
• Bonacich, Edna and Jake Wilson. 2005. “Global Production and Distribution: Wal-Mart’s Global Logistics Empire.” In Wal-Mart World, edited by Stanley D. Brunn. Pp. 227-242. New York: Routledge.

Awards:

• 2020 Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership’s Ethics Across the Curriculum Faculty Award 
• 2015-2016 Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award. California State University, Long Beach.
• 2015, 2019 Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), Mentorship Award. California State University, Long Beach.
• 2014 Most Inspiring Professor, CSULB Alumni Association. California State University, Long Beach.
• 2013 Enhancing Education Through Technology (3ET) Award, Flipping the Classroom Stipend. California State University, Long Beach.
• 2013 Faculty Mentoring Award, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). California State University, Long Beach.
• 2012 Labor Ignites Featured Scholar. The Dolores Huerta Labor Institute. Los Angeles Community College.