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Last week, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center participated in an action coordinated between different organizations both in the region and internationally which aimed at targeting Amazon’s relationships with law enforcement agencies, particularly, their contracts with ICE. The action took place on the first of Amazon’s two prime days this year. These days are known for providing Amazon customers with great deals on items they want but result in an added pressure on the people powering Amazon’s business; warehouse workers who are already pushed to meet unrealistic rates and quotas. Although Amazon sits as one of the largest companies in the world with the richest man in the world at its head, not many people are aware of the intimate relationship it has created with law enforcement agencies like ICE, Customs and Border Patrol and local police forces through its support of facial recognition technology and cloud storage. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the company’s cloud division and its hosting of tech company, Palantir, has led to them obtaining contracts with the federal government. This has enabled the two to power ICE’s detention of immigrant people. The technology that allows these law enforcement agencies to keep detailed records of the population, including iris scans, face records, and fingerprint is called the Investigative Case Management system, or ICM. In 2016, Amazon officials met with ICE to pitch their facial recognition technology, Rekognition, a program that gives law enforcement officials the ability to identify and obtain information about people from pictures and surveillance videos. An ACLU report finds that this technology is particularly problematic and dangerous because of its matching of photos of people of color with criminal records incorrectly at a disproportionately higher rate than the matches made with photos of white people. A letter signed by 450 Amazon employees urging the company and CEO Jeff Bezos to cut ties with ICE was met with no response. Mijente, a site specializing in social justice issues involving Latino people, has published an investigative report detailing the dangerous relationships Amazon has forged with the government, including the infographic below.

A Mijente graphic details the web of connections that allows Amazon to power ICE’s operations.

 

The action we participated in centered around the hashtag #NoTechForICE and was part of a larger effort coordinated between different activist groups in the United States and internationally to protest both Amazon’s contracts with ICE and its mistreatment of workers overall. In Europe, where strikes are generally more popular and supported, workers at facilities in countries like Germany and the UK have walked off the job before and did so again this past week. In Minnesota, we saw the first walk out and strike by Amazon workers in the United States. A community of Somali Muslim people organized within the Shakopee facility around the lack of access to adequate breaks and the unreasonable quotas that are forced upon workers which create an unsafe and highly surveilled work environment. At the Shakopee facility, protestors held signs saying, “We’re humans not robots” to refer to the strict quota system and schedule that workers must follow in order to keep their job. The Minnesota action was done in coordination with actions that took place in U.S. cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. All of these different actions were geared toward exposing Amazon for the dangerous conditions they push upon workers in the name of providing ultra convenient shopping options for their customers. 

Workers and supporters rally outside of the Shakopee, Minnesota Amazon facility as part of their six hour strike. 

As part of the #NoTechForICE action, members of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, along with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice who took the lead in organizing the action, entered the lobby of an Amazon warehouse in San Bernardino. Out of the number of Amazon warehouses in the area, choosing one in San Bernardino allowed us to protest both the conditions that employees are forced to work through but also the ease and ability that Amazon has given law enforcement agencies, like the San Bernardino PD, in the detention of immigrant people. Clad with white shirts that we designed for the action, the WWRC, along with a number of other organizations, occupied the front lobby of the San Bernardino Amazon warehouse and demanded to speak to someone that could take a box of petitions with over 280,000 signatures calling on Amazon to end their business with ICE. As we crowded into the space and chanted, speakers denounced the working environments that Amazon offers their employees, ones that force physical ailments on them, and their powering of ICE’s detention of immigrant people and their terrorizing of vulnerable communities. 

Participants deliver petitions demanding Amazon end their contracts with ICE on 7/15/19. 

As the largest private employer in the Inland Empire and as a company that has grown to amass such great wealth and influence in such a short amount of time, Amazon is setting a strong precedent for how warehouse work should be. Because of this, it has become especially urgent for us to continue to bring to light the dangers that the corporation poses on our communities. In our ongoing work, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center is fighting against Amazon and similar forces that seek to benefit off of the oppression of working people. As we look forward to opportunities to put checks on Amazon’s growing power, we do so with the wellbeing of all workers in mind.

Spanish news source, Estrella, covered the San Bernardino action and can be viewed here.

#NoTechForICE participants chant in the lobby of a San Bernardino Amazon warehouse.

This past week, one of our staff members, Javier Rodriguez, testified in front of Congress on the need for a national bill regulating heat in the workplace. The need to protect workers facing high heat environments has not been taken on as a national issue yet despite the number of injuries and deaths that occur each year as a result. California was the first state to implement any form of standards regulating heat in the workplace. In 2006, the first move to protect workers from high heat and heat-related illnesses and death went into effect. Within the language of the bill, standards are specifically geared toward outdoor workers and workplaces and outlines which industries are protected under it. These industries include agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, and transportation but fail to provide protections for warehouse workers and other indoor workers.

The death of four workers in 2005 due to heat-related illnesses spurred a push for an official state standard regarding occupational heat. This led to the first bill being passed in 2006. Then governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, held a press conference where he called for emergency measures to be put in place by California’s Occupational Safety and Health Board, or Cal/OSHA, that would provide the means for regulating heat in the workplace. Being the first of its kind in the nation, it set a standard for how all states should provide protections for workers from the heat. Unfortunately, however, California was not followed by many other states. In fact, only Minnesota and Washington have issued some form of guidelines on heat concerning occupational safety in the 14 years since that moment. Without a federal guideline on how employers should prevent heat-related illness, there have been more deaths as a result of high heat conditions in the workplace. In 2011, there were 61 deaths linked to heat-related illness caused by conditions in the workplace. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH is tasked with conducting research and creating standards surrounding workplace safety and because this is their purpose as an institution, any injuries and deaths that occur as a result of a lack of regulations around heat are negligent on the part of our government. 

Knowing the dangers that unchecked work environments pose, especially in the high heat of the summer in the Inland Empire, the Warehouse Workers Resource Center has worked to have legislation that would provide protections for workers both on the state and federal level. In 2016, the WWRC worked with California Senator Connie Leyva to introduce a bill, SB 1167, that would expand heat protections for workers in indoor facilities. In that same year, 39 people died due to heat-related illnesses. The passage of the bill instructed Cal/OSHA to come up with standards for heat illness and injury prevention by January of this year. 

On July 11th, one of our staff members, Javier Rodriguez testified in front of Congress about the need for a national occupational heat standard. As someone with 15 years of experience in warehouse and construction jobs, Javier was able to speak to the ways he’s seen employers neglecting the health of their employees in favor of profit and efficiency. As an organizer with the WWRC, Javier is committed to helping workers organize and exercise their rights. His testimony spoke to the experiences he faced while working for NFI Crossdock, a facility that moves goods for Walmart. From his testimony, we learn that the metal shipping containers that the workers moved heavy boxes in and out of would reach temperatures as high as 115 degrees in the summer.

              Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania asks Javier about the conditions at the NFI Crossdock.

With temperatures this high, one could assume that managers at NFI would take measures to prevent on the clock injuries and illnesses but this was not the case. Instead, Javier saw that those who spoke up to their managers about the high heat, lack of breaks, and the lack of access to drinking water were retaliated against and not asked to return to work the next day. 

The bill, HR 3668, or as Representative Judy Chu of California’s 27th district has pinned it, the Asuncíon Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act would expand protections for workers facing high heat environments. Her and Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona’s 3rd District introduced the bill at a press conference where they had different community members speak about why a national standard regulating occupational heat is so crucial. Representative Chu described Asuncíon’s story in the bill’s introduction, saying that he passed away after suffering from a heat stroke at the end of working 10 hours straight in 105-degree weather. As we remember and reflect on Asunción’s story, we must recognize that even one death is too many when the conditions that caused these fatalities were completely preventable. What we are seeing, however, is an unwillingness to respond in any significant way by our government.

                                                    Representative Judy Chu introduces the bill to the House.

Among those who spoke was Arturo Rodriguez. As the former president of United Farm Workers, Mr. Rodriguez has worked with thousands of farmworkers across the country and carries a deep knowledge of the serious dangers that heat illnesses pose for communities of workers. He was also a member of the panel that Javier was on and testified to the way that communities of farmworkers are too familiar with and deeply affected by the dangers of heat illnesses. 

                                      Arturo Rodriguez speaks to California’s history with heat regulations.

As time passes without the protections we need and as the nation slowly dips into warmer temperatures, all workers remain at risk to heat-related illness. The road to stronger protections is being complicated and extended by lengthy bureaucratic processes. Currently, in the month of July, Cal/OSHA is still formulating a final draft of the bill which was originally expected to be released at the beginning of this year. With a standardized regulatory impact assessment, or SRIA, still needed before the bill is passed through to the next stage, it is expected that the bill will not become law until next year. Once the SRIA is conducted, the bill will be voted on within the standards board of Cal/OSHA and once approved, then it will become law. 

Considering the timeline that California has created in enacting heat standards, especially with its splitting and staggering of heat protections between outdoor and indoor workers in a decade difference, we expect there to be a long fight in our efforts to pass national heat protections for workers. Despite any of these difficulties, the WWRC will continue to call attention to this issue as we work toward educating workers on how to prevent heat-related illnesses and as we advocate for policy that will create safeguards for all workers. 

The hearing can be viewed in full in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQa3ng55mx8

What now stands as the San Bernardino International Airport was once the Norton Air Force Base. As a sprawling military facility employing scores of people from the surrounding communities, it represented the region’s pathway to economic sanctity through industrialization. It has been more than 25 years since the Norton Air Force Base of San Bernardino closed. At the time of its closure in 1994, the base had employed 12,000 people both in civilian and military roles and had contributed almost $2 billion annually to the local region’s economy. With the loss of jobs and revenue during the base’s closure, the region was hit hard with unemployment and anxieties over how to renovate the facility into something that could lift the community back up into economic mobility. The solution that came to the San Bernardino International Airport Authority, or the SBIAA was to build logistics centers on site that could provide basic warehousing and trucking jobs. This was done through a partnership with Hillwood Enterprises in 2001, when they first entered into an industrial development agreement with the San Bernardino International Airport Authority (source). This entailed the building of warehouses on the base and began with its first tenant, Mattel in 2003 (source). Fast forward to January of 2017 and the Airport Authority board has chosen to transform a 2,000,000 square feet piece of land attached to the airport into a development project exclusively in the hands of that same company, Hillwood. The details of this plan will involve a 35 year ground lease with a tenant entirely up to Hillwood’s choosing. 

In July of 2018, the SBIAA had posted a notice of review for the project which names it the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center. In October of the same year, the SBIAA approved Eastgate’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The 2,692 page report states that the timeline for the project has been accelerated in order to meet the demands of the prospective tenant and can be read here. This would involve the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center being up and running as soon as October of this year. The report’s findings also show that, within the next couple of years, the project would add 26 daily airplane trips and 1,500 additional truck trips per day and have considerable negative effects on the surrounding environment, especially concerning the levels of ozone pollutants the facility would emit in its operation. Seeing that San Bernardino County already ranks as one of the highest ozone polluted counties in the nation, these added trips, with expectancy to grow past these numbers, is troubling. Along with these figures are claims made by the SBIAA, specifically, the executive director Michael Burrows, that the facility would generate 3,800 new jobs (source). This figure is disputed in a Traffic Analysis Report made for the SBIAA and Hillwood in July of 2018 that says the number of available jobs will be closer to 1,726.

These figures have led us to believe that Hillwood and the SBIAA have not been transparent about the goals and actual outcomes of the project because they would not directly or indirectly benefit the San Bernardino and surrounding communities. Understanding the threat that this poses, there has been a growing movement of coordinated community and organization action in order to put checks on this project and its potential impacts. Joining together to form the Inland Coalition as part of the San Bernardino Airport Communities are different organizations across the region who work toward expanding social, economic, political, and environmental rights for all people living here. These groups include the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, the Sierra Club’s My Generation Campaign, Worksafe, Teamsters Local 1932, IE United, Inland Empire Labor Council, SEIU Local 2015, and the Warehouse Workers Resource Center. On April 17th of this year, the Inland Coalition held their first town hall meeting in order to gather community members and allow them to address their grievances concerning the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center project. The town hall saw more than 300 people in attendance as people used the space to express their frustrations of being left out of the process that the SBIAA took as they sought to instill what they see would bring a rebirth of the city (article).

Community members attend a town hall meeting on 4/17/19 to discuss the Eastgate project. 

 Many community members rejected this sentiment based on what they’ve seen Hillwood already provide the community with– warehouse jobs that do not provide a living wage or a satisfactory quality of life. A second meeting with community members on June 13th was structured around leadership workshops which encouraged people to develop their organizing skills. A question that was posed during one of the exercises asked community members what they would want to see in an agreement between the community and the developer of the Eastgate project– what kind of provisions would make them most comfortable with a project of this size and influence.

Community members workshop ideas of what they would include in a CBA on 6/13/19.

Community members were also asked to roleplay the conversations they would have with neighbors, friends, or family members in order to get the word out about the project. This helped to put participants in a mindset where it is up to them to raise awareness and pool participation from the people in the community around them. This was followed by an Airport Authority meeting at the San Bernardino International Airport on June 26th in which its board members, including the mayor of San Bernardino, John Valdivia, listened to community members speak with displays of apathy. During this meeting, different community members spoke about the concerns they have with the amounts of pollutants the facility is projected to bring. Some speakers reflected on how the region has changed since the closure of Norton Air Force Base and how the city, it’s resources, and the landscape has deteriorated since then. A few members of the community urged the board members to consider the proposed community benefits agreement. 

Board members of the Airport Authority listen to community members on 6/26/19.

At the heart of the Inland Coalition’s platform is the community benefits agreement, sometimes also called a community workforce agreement. These agreements have been used as tools to negotiate for better outcomes in communities faced with the development of their land by corporations. Community benefit agreements involve an agreement between a developer and community coalition that makes clear the needs of the community and delineates ways for these objectives to be achieved so that they become enforceable by law within the two parties’ agreement (Partnership for Working Families). They usually revolve around the mitigation of harmful environmental and economic impacts so that the agreement can work toward providing the community with better quality jobs, protections against environmental decay, and more power in the processes of decision making by making clear these demands and holding corporations and city officials accountable to the communities of the region. One example where CBA’s have been successful in achieving better conditions for communities is the Oakland Air Base campaign in 2012. In this case, 30 organizations of different backgrounds and fields joined together to form Revive Oakland! (source). Within this community benefits agreement, the coalition demanded that all workers receive a livable wage, 50% of jobs be sourced from right there in Oakland with formerly incarcerated people being eligible, and the restriction of the use of temporary staffing agencies. Through their unity and the insistence on these objectives, Revive Oakland! was successful in securing these objectives and worked toward building a more equitable system of work and living.  

  As we move forward our work on the Eastgate project, we continue to call attention to the developer, Hillwood, the public officials charged with advancing the project, and all of the dangerous and unfair conditions that arise from unchecked corporate development like this. This has involved our coalition in different meetings, both with each other and with the Airport Authority and the developer. Within these meetings, we have put the needs of the community at the center through continued discussion on the implementation of the community benefits agreement. As our coalition works with each other to face these challenges, we continue our work to create a higher, overall standard for working conditions, one that will provide a better quality of life and income for people. Even though we are focusing in on San Bernardino for the Eastgate project, our hope and goals are to be constantly expanding the work and setting the standard, across the nation, for how developers should expect to interact with communities when looking to build within their spaces. In our Community Benefits Agreement, we are demanding jobs be sourced from the local area and ensure a living wage and protections for workers, a healthy and safe environment, responsible stewardship of taxpayer money, protections for vulnerable populations such as immigrants, people of color, youth, people of the LGBTQIA+ community, those who were formerly incarcerated, and finally, all other benefits which have arisen from directly impacted community needs. Through all of these objectives, we hope to forge a better environment and working landscape for the people of San Bernardino and nearby communities.