Abstract

In current post-industrial metropolises, the logistics industry is one of the few sectors experiencing blue-collar jobs growth, concerning both warehousing and deliveries (Bonacich & Wilson, 2008). Moreover, in the context of the fall of manufacturing jobs, logistics blue-collar workers are now dominant within the blue-collar social group in urban regions. Against this background, the goal of this presentation is to explore the territorial consequences of this sectorial shift within working classes in the case of the Paris Region. Does it lead to the emergence of new blue-collar workplaces and residential places with different urban, socio-economic characteristics compared to the industrial era? Our main hypothesis is that the territorial rupture consists mostly in the emergence of new workplaces for blue-collar workers while residential places remain quite stable. These new workplaces strongly differ from historical industrial ones: on the one hand, warehouses are further and further away in outer suburbia and often ignored by trade unions and leftwing parties and, on the other hand, delivery drivers are working in city-centers, where they are almost invisible. This changing landscape of blue-collar places certainly contributes to the growing political invisibly of blue-collar workers. The demonstration will be based most of all on spatial analysis of employment data localized at workplaces and residential places. The results will also be confronted with qualitative research about the working conditions in warehouses (Gaborieau, 2016) and about the governance of logistics territories (Raimbault, 2014). This way, some research perspectives about the current place of blue-collar workers in postindustrial global cities will be presented.