Tom Woodruff, the director of our Strategic Organizing Center (seen above addressing the 2007 Change to Win Convention), has an article in today’s Huffington Post about how hard the economic crisis has hit California’s Inland Empire — one of the global economy’s most critical distribution hubs — and how the region’s workers are calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to help restore their chance to achieve the American Dream:
The Inland Empire is home to the largest concentration of warehouse space on the planet, 366 million square feet and growing. More than 43% of all US imports come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and over three-quarters of this cargo takes at least one trip through an Inland Empire warehouse. The top five companies with the most warehouse space are the biggest retail corporations in the nation: Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears/Kmart…
The goods movement industry was supposed to provide a path to the middle class for workers in the region, but instead a majority of the workers in these warehouses are hired through temp agencies or third-party logistics firms, paid low wages, receive few benefits, and have no job security. Temporary employment in the area grew by 575% since 1990…
A new worker movement is growing in the Inland Empire to hold these companies accountable. Thousands of warehouse workers are joining together in Warehouse Workers United to change the broken system. They are calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will make it easier to form a union and negotiate for higher wages, better benefits and a new employment system that treats all workers fairly.