Divide et impera: fragmented employment and racial management in Austrian parcel logistics

The present paper draws on findings from an empirical study of migrant employment in the Austrian parcel logistics sector. It examines how the fragmentation of employment intersects with racialisation in the labour process, thereby hindering solidarity and resistance among workers and locking migrant workers into the lowest segments of the labour market. Theoretically, the contribution builds on the US debate on the ‘racialisation of labour’, which highlights the historical dimension of the (post-)colonial division of labour that continues to be reproduced within everyday labour processes. The central argument is that fragmented employment in the sector – through the division between core and peripheral workers and outsourcing via subcontractors – is sustained by the racialisation of migrants, as it establishes hierarchies within the labour process and perpetuates competition and exploitability. Furthermore, the concept of ‘racial management’ is expanded and differentiated by demonstrating how, in Austrian parcel logistics, not only low-level white ethnic ‘Austrian’ management, but also racialised fore(wo)men or subcontractors play a pivotal role in pitting differently racialised workers against one another.