In the final weeks of 2018, a minor crisis was unfolding in a warehouse in West London. A shipment of conveyor-belt parts intended for the British Virgin Islands had not shown up. The van carrying the parts from a factory in Spain to London, via France, had been held up by the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) and the shipment missed its Caribbean-bound cargo flight.
The powerful and contradictory ‘yellow vests’ mass movement against Emmanuel Macron’s government has two core tactics: rioting and blockades. The obstruction of roundabouts across France proliferated to the point that it caused a chain reaction, preventing shipments from moving reliably from A to B. The interrupted passage of the conveyor-belt parts bound for West London was of no particular significance for the global circulation of commodities – but their fate shows up the intense vulnerability of our global economy’s extended supply chains. Increasingly, workers are starting to use that vulnerability to their advantage.
