Advancing debate on precarious workers and class interests : Evidence from warehouse workers in Australia

[Extract] The chapter proceeds as follows: the second section provides an overview of criticisms of Standing’s claims about precarious workers and social class. It outlines Wright’s alternative and discusses how this might be operationalised empirically. The third section outlines our methodology and provides a background to our case study, including the nature of work in warehouse logistics. The chapter then provides data from our case study which grounds Wright’s concepts of class and power in practice. This fourth section explores this data at what Wright called the ‘institutional level’ of power while the fifth section does so at the ‘situational level’ of power.