Description

Logistics is today a multi-trillion dollar industry that is projected to grow between 5% and 7% annually over the next decade. California‘s Inland Empire is one of the primary US hubs of the sector. Goods arriving through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will likely pass through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, where they will be stored in the 150 million square feet of warehouses that have been built there in the last ten years. And the sector is poised to continue growing fast, aided in part by the San Bernardino airport’s recently approved 600,000 square foot expansion to support air freight and warehousing.   These warehouses and the companies that own or use them—Amazon, Walmart, FedEx—have become central to the economy of the Inland Empire. Nearly 200,000 people work in these warehouses, many of them temporary, low-wage workers employed in facilities with poor, even dangerous, working conditions. The Warehouse Worker Resource Center serves these workers. Founded in 2011, WWRC is the only worker support center in the region, providing legal aid and education and advocating on behalf of workers.    The Center recognizes that logistics is the backbone of the Inland Empire economy and isn’t going away. But it should benefit everyone—workers and neighbors, as well as companies. WWRC is focusing its energies now on growing the leadership and organizational capacity of workers themselves. The Center will create a new organization, Warehouse Workers United, that will provide a structure for workers to identify their own needs and priorities and to articulate those to employers.    WWU is not a union and will not engage in collective bargaining; instead, it will be an avenue for workers to communicate with employers and to advocate for themselves. WWRC will help to identify potential workplace leaders, provide leadership development and training, and offer advice and assistance as workers develop their own structures and plans.   Democracy can’t thrive if citizens believe that they do not have a fair chance to secure a living wage safely. If citizens perceive that the channels of opportunity are closed to them, then trust breaks down, confidence fails, social contracts are broken. WWRC understands this and is committed to building new democratic structures to ensure that workers have a place at the political and economic table and that economic growth benefits all citizens and the community as a whole.