172 Classon Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205 United States
172 Classon Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205 United States
Covid-19 tents similar to a circus are used for daily compulsory workers' self-tests. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
The oppressed people are always asked to stretch a little more to bridge the gap between blindness and humanity. ——Audrey Lord 1
At around 10pm on May 28, 2020, I received a notification on my phone. This is a Slack message from my boss, who is the director of the fulfillment center of an online supermarket in the Port of Rotterdam. According to the news, the first case of Covid-19 has been found in the warehouse. Starting tomorrow, all workers should wear masks on the floor for a week. Unlike public transportation and grocery stores, this is the first time that the fulfillment center mandates the wearing of masks two full months after the Dutch began the lockdown. When the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, the director sent another Slack message announcing that “the country’s food supply chain has been determined to be vital to the continuation of Dutch society.” Fulfillment The center will remain open and we "basic" workers will continue to work. I am vital to the continuation of society, but obviously, I can sacrifice while I am forced to be exposed to the virus.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we all know that we have been working in danger. However, the second Slack message still announces what we already know in a very straightforward manner: the fulfillment center is a contact area, and all our warehouse workers are more or less messed up. The state policy of blockade and "social distancing" only allows the majority of the white middle class to stay at home. At the same time, I and 400 other warehouse workers "selected" the toilet paper and canned food that these middle-class customers ordered online.
Other things happened in the same week, and masks must be worn in the fulfillment center. A few days ago, on May 25th, George Floyd was killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis. Maybe it was the anger caused by the unfairness of his death that week, maybe it was because he was also an essential worker, maybe it was because most of our warehouse workers had brown and black bodies, but after I received my After the news of the boss of a white Dutchman, a feeling of anger and frustration, I have never felt since the pandemic began to overwhelm my body. For the first time, I was afraid to go to work.
Obviously, these emotions conceal a deep and strong sense of fear. But this fear is different from the fear caused by the pandemic, which caused those capable people to empty supermarket shelves and stay in safe homes. The kind of fear I feel has to do with my skin color and my condition as a Dutch brown immigrant. This fear intensified during the crisis and will continue for a long time after the pandemic is over. The second Slack message in the pandemic convinced me that my destiny will inevitably be in a state of instability and exploitation.
Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
Just like every Saturday when I go to work, I get up very late. This means I don’t have time to eat breakfast. Due to the anxiety caused by fasting and the racial inequality and unfairness of advanced capitalism, I left home and rode my bike to the center of Rotterdam. The usually crowded and noisy station has now become quiet and empty, and only us important staff can use it. Once in a train carriage, with my head on the window, I saw Rotterdam's cosmopolitan city center gradually disappearing as we moved to the isolated south.
I remembered the five years I lived in the Netherlands. I thought about how scholarships for non-EU students can achieve the European dream without paying rent. I thought about all the restrictions imposed by my visa, which prevented me from finding another job and from continuing to accept almost unpaid cultural internships. Without the income from my port work, I would have to leave graduate school and return to my home in Mexico. There, just like elsewhere in the so-called "Global South", the pandemic started with greater force and unfairness, and poverty and instability have been more intense.
When the subway reached Zuidplein and Slinge, the two largest subway stations in the south, most people of color came in. When I recognized some workers coming in, I thought of an old roommate, a white Dutchman, who once told me that Rotterdam is considered "the least city in the Netherlands." He may be referring to the least "white" Dutch city. Almost half of Rotterdam's population has an immigrant background. Most of the city’s colored population and workers in the logistics center came from Suriname and Curaçao, where the Dutch Empire traded slaves until the end of the 19th century. 2 The south is also where most of my artist friends live, white and non-white. Their small houses are increasingly becoming a target of gentrification, and their unstable rent contracts make it easy for their landlords to evict them.
Damn castle. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
Twenty minutes later, we got off the subway in Rhoon, a wealthy rural area. All cities in the south are contradictory, and even further south, near the port, there are wealthy white Dutch families. The narrow streets are surrounded by beautiful Dutch huts with open windows, and I ride a bicycle through these streets with other basic workers. Their sailboats, Mercedes-Benz cars and immaculate gardens are clearly visible when they cross the road. Before the closure of the city, the wealthy residents of Rhoon used to enjoy a rare sunny day in the outdoor cafe of Castle van Rhoon, which has now become a luxury hotel. The main entrance of the castle is guarded by two dog statues, one on each side. I have never seen a black or brown family near this castle or anywhere else near it.
As I continued to walk towards the factory, two smiling little blond girls rode on pony horses and waved to me in opposite directions. Their mother rode an average-sized horse, limiting their greetings to a timid smile. That day — passing through the flawless Dutch countryside, its stupid castles, those white Dutch women who barely smiled at me — felt more obscene than usual. Capitalism itself rode arrogant horses in parades, stipulating who has the right to stay safe and who must work in contaminated buildings—that is, the descendants of slaves and brown immigrants.
After the passive aggressive march of structural racism, a long wall made up of thousands of small stones, one kilometer long and no more than five meters, marks the end of the road. This wall was placed here to prevent the noise of Industrial Avenue from disturbing the affluent community. An opening in the middle divides the wall into two parts, connected only by a small wooden door. The wooden threshold at the end of the road was crossed by every basic worker on the way in and out of the operation center. On the metal frame of the wooden door it is written with a black marker "Dutch girls like black dicks!" Then there is an explanatory picture. Obviously, this is not information about love, but about objectification, exoticism to others, and the containment of desire in the deep-rooted racial stereotypes of "innocent" whites. 3
Racial desire and exoticism on the threshold. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
This wall marked the end of the idyllic privileged world of the countryside and the beginning of the highly industrialized and exploited port. Warehouses and containers of various colors were piled on top of each other, replacing the affluent huts. In the distance, I can see the towers of the Shell refinery deep into Europe's largest port. Beside these shiny towers, I can also see tall, powerful, and calm container cranes moving slowly. The huge and huge mechanical beauty of Europe's largest port has been in motion and has been silent. This silence fuels the idea that the port is empty and the illusion that everyone is safe at home during the pandemic. But the port is not cleared. We, thousands of port workers, are very concerned about its core. It is our labor that allows it to exist.
As I walked through the gates of the fulfillment center, I walked through the parking lot, zigzagging between some trucks, waiting for their turn to unload at one of the 11 huge truck entrances. One of the drivers, Berwan, was a short, chubby man, standing outside his truck smoking a cigarette, yelling "jalapeno!" and waving at me as I passed by. He always calls me that, and I like it. Berwan first came to the Netherlands as an asylum seeker from Kurdistan. His eyes are one of the kindest I have ever seen.
Hairy cows, other important workers in the port, keep the grass short and protect the threshold between privilege and an unstable world. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the entrance of workers is no longer visible. In the front is a white tent with two cone-shaped facades in the middle, much like a circus tent. The capitalist circus. As soon as I entered the tent, I lined up behind another worker. Soon, more workers followed me. As the team moved, I finally entered the building and found another warehouse worker dressed as a doctor sitting behind the window of a small dark room waiting for me. She held a thermometer in her hand, and as soon as I walked to the window, she put it on my forehead. She checked my temperature, registered it on her laptop, and gave me a plastic strap. "Enjoy your transformation!" she said.
The next room is the "dressing room", which is packed with lockers and benches pasted on the bright red prefabricated wall, where workers can change people who have not yet put on uniforms. Ordinary warehouse workers wear red T-shirts and matching sweaters, or orange if they are "interns". Other colors and more comfortable shoes can be used by people in more senior positions. Now that I had put on my uniform, I went directly to the other side of the room and changed a line, passing through the two electric revolving doors between the five-meter-high huge steel fence. When it was my turn to enter, there was a sound indicating that the door had been activated. After placing my log label on the magnetic plaque next to it, I passed.
The fulfillment center is a sealed shoe box, the interior of which is also isolated and without windows. Everything about this 10-meter-high building is designed to transport products from trucks. Inside, everything is moving. Everything has wheels. It is an always-on processing architecture. The first group of workers entered at 3 am, and the last group left at 1 am. The 400 workers walked an average of 20 kilometers every 9 hours.
I walked to the nearest clock, clocked in, and then took out a usable scanner from the table next to it. When I placed the scanner on my arm and logged in, I approached a nearby screen and looked for my name. Unsurprisingly, I found it in the "cold storage" section and the "picking" section. Only the fastest pickers will be sent to cold storage. Obviously, my speed is very fast. Wearing a red uniform, mask, industrial shoes, warm jacket, work gloves, and hanging the scanner on my arm, I walked to the back of the building with the freezer. My shift has not started yet, but my data has been collected at least four times.
Walking into the cold area, I was seen by several surveillance cameras installed on the roof. In the fulfillment center, everything is monitored and controlled, including products and workers. The main example of worker monitoring in a warehouse is the scoring screen located at the entrance of the refrigerator. The screen lists the speed of each picker when picking goods, from fastest to slowest. They are also used as trackers to indicate our exact position in the aisle. As soon as we completed a round of picking, the pickers gathered around the screen, hoping to find our name first in the list. The score screen defines our working day, our physical exhaustion, our self-development, and our future in the company. Supervisors or "captains" are also gathered around the screen, and they can be accessed online. Indispensable work, complex monitoring.
An incomplete 3D model of the fulfillment center. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
There is an adrenaline in the refrigerator. As soon as you enter the door, the misty, creamy, and fresh atmosphere will bring you into it, making you a part of the space like a nightclub or gym. The music is very loud and everyone walks fast because it is too cold. All the products are arranged on the shelves, and the shelves are divided into different aisles, just like in a supermarket. Due to the cold, products can be close to each other, which makes it easier for pickers to pick items faster. I grabbed an electric picking truck parked at the beginning of the first aisle, selected "Pick" on the scanner, and scanned its number. "3x A-17-01-1 to 14."
Each picking truck contains 21 numbered suitcases, and a round of picking may take up to 40 or 50 minutes, depending on the speed of the picker. Before reaching the speed score that allowed me to pick in the freezer, I used to pick in the surrounding area, where the trainer kept giving me feedback on how to move faster and how to reduce errors while scanning. At the beginning of the picking round, there is always traffic, and the pickers get into trouble when picking the two-liter bottle of milk. This is one of the most popular products and one of the heaviest. But as we continued to move forward, the product became lighter, and we started to move faster.
Even during a crisis, it is not difficult to work faster. After the outbreak, the company's profits skyrocketed. The number of channels has increased, and the picking trucks have become heavier. The same is true for my industrial shoes, and the same is true for my physical fatigue. However, despite our anxiety and fear, we pickers seem to have become faster. The discomfort of wearing a mask while picking makes us more anxious, which in turn will only make us walk faster. Stretch our arms between the aisles, reach out, grab, scan canned kimchi, yogurt, scanner, meat, vegetables, picking cart, pink cream hummus...
Impact: Passionate self-exploitation of workers of color and its instrumentalization of capitalism. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
Whenever the speed record is broken, it will be displayed on the score screen, and the supervisor will publicly congratulate the picker through Slack. Everyone saw the post. Everyone commented. Everyone has added emojis. Influence. Another trick of the Port Advanced Capitalist Circus: use the adrenaline and passion of most black and brown warehouse workers; normalize our anxiety, fear, and instability.
Midnight finally came, and it was time to go home. I finished my work in time to catch the last subway, which departed at 00:19. When I left the warehouse, I was so tired that I could hardly feel my body. Since the pandemic began, my migraines and knee pain have only increased. I got rid of all my equipment, exited, clocked in, went through those metal doors again, picked up my bike, and left.
The port can be seen from one of the several windows in the fulfillment center. Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
When I rode back to the threshold of the port, I realized that this stupid little wooden door seemed more charming during the day, approaching and passing through it from a wealthy neighborhood. From here, at this night, it actually looks pretty scary. The total darkness and silence, the separation of the two walls and the small corridor between them make me feel as isolated as the space I have spent in the past nine hours. The person who designed it didn't think about the person on the other side of the wall.
When I opened the wooden door and walked two steps to the other side of the threshold, I saw six huge shadows in front of me, darker and heavier than other places. I walked two more steps before I felt breathing next to me, and recognized a group of six huge long-haired cows standing a few centimeters away. I have heard of these cows from other workers, but I have never seen them myself. They were obviously brought from Scotland to keep the grass short, and although they were harmless, everyone was still afraid to meet them, especially at this time of the night. I was also scared silly. I couldn't move for a few seconds, and I was more scared than when I received the Slack message the day before.
I'm on this threshold, between one word and another, in front of another danger that the port puts my body in. However, I can also recognize myself in these shaggy figures breathing in front of me. Just like I was a brown immigrant who was taken to the port to carry hummus and milk, cows were also taken here for different types of labor. I gathered my anxiety and exhaustion, my remaining adrenaline, my fear and my frustration, clutched my bike tightly, and walked past the horned cow.
Picture: Denisse Vega de Santiago, 2021.
When I passed by them, I heard and felt their breath, I imagined being one of them; at that moment, in this case, in this eternally dangerous and violent destiny, there is something different My stuff. Finally embodied the violence and exploitation of the fear and exploitation of my body for a long time, I feel that I have mutated into a half-machine, half-hairy, half-brown working-class Mexican immigrant. Now as this mutant, I pass the castle again, stop briefly to dance in front of the dog statue, and then continue my journey. Passing by the mansion, finally stopped under the Big Three. I'm so tired, my knee still hurts. I sat on the grass, under the big tree, turned my corner, and fell asleep.
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Truemansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984).
The Dutch eventually discovered that the slave trade was not unprofitable, partly because of the high mortality rate when slaves crossed the ocean; 30% of slaves died on ships.
Gloria Wekker, White Innocence: The Paradox of Colonialism and Race (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016).
Workplace is a collaborative project between e-flux Architecture and the Canadian Architecture Center in the context of its one-year research project Catching Up With Life.
Thanks to Natasha Marie Llorens for her long-term guidance in finding the right words and feelings for this story.
Denisse Vega de Santiago is a Mexican architect, independent curator and editor based in Rotterdam. She has written articles on labor, race, and decolonization feminist practices in art and architecture.
172 Classon Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205 United States
172 Classon Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205 United States
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