Santiago Laguna Aldana

Thesis title

My thesis title is: Organising Racialised and Migrant Labour: A Comparative Study of the Amazon Warehouses in South Yorkshire and the Inland Empire, California

About the researcher

In October 2024, I joined the Centre for Decent Work (CDW) as a doctoral researcher.

My PhD focuses on understanding the barriers and possibilities for labour organising for low-paid racialised and migrant warehouse workers. Using an international comparative study between the US and the UK, this research aims to unveil how national and local contexts shape trade union initiatives and workers' experiences and agency. The research will collect the strategies and tactics unions, labour organisations, and workers develop to navigate and respond to experiences of exploitation and exclusion within and outside the workplace.  

With several worker-led and union initiatives of workplace organising at Amazon in both countries, it becomes paramount to collect the voices of workers and labour organisers concerning their understanding of power and the barriers and possibilities for trade union revitalisation. Amidst a possible shift towards a trade union renewal and revitalisation in the Global North following decades of decline, this study intends to inform campaigns and strategies for trade unions and workers looking to organise. In particular, in industries where the state, technology, and differentiation processes such as racialisation hinder workers' power and open new territories for contestation and struggle.

My experience includes working for the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), the IOM (UN Migration), and volunteering with several migrant organisations in the UK and Spain.