Warehouse Worker Resource Center

Improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California

Press Releases

Amazon Warehouse Workers Document Extreme Temperatures in Western Air Hub, Demand Safety Protections

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Contact: media@warehouseworkers.org

Bracing for California’s Heat Wave, Workers Demanded and Won Extra safety Precautions to Protect their Coworkers from Extreme Heat

San Bernardino, Calif. — Warehouse workers at Amazon’s West Coast Air Freight Fulfillment Center, also known as KSBD, in partnership with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, released a new report Thursday that documents extremely high temperatures at the warehouse and grave inconsistencies with Amazon’s own temperature monitors.

“People who I work with closely, who I call friends, have suffered from heat illness this summer,” said Rex Evans, who works at KSBD. “When we saw the forecast that it would be even hotter, we had to take action. We had to protect ourselves.”

Over the summer, at least half a dozen workers documented heat illness at KSBD and as temperatures soared into the 90s and 100s, the workers at KSBD formulated their demands and directly approached Amazon warehouse management on Aug. 31 and Sept. 2 to win protections from extreme heat.

Then workers representing every department at the facility took thermometers to work for seven days and recorded the temperatures throughout the day. At one point, on Sept. 4, workers recorded a temperature of 121 degrees in an outdoor work area.

“We understand how serious heat illness is. It can kill,” said Alfonso Rodriguez, who works at the facility. “We do physically demanding work, moving thousands of pounds of freight a day. Without regular breaks, access to water and a chance to cool your body down, even the healthiest person is in danger.”

The data the workers collected confirmed extreme temperatures at the facility and affirmed that their advocacy was merited, underlining the need for improved health and safety protections.

“Workers in California have a right to a safe work environment and that includes protections from heat,” said Tim Shaddix, legal director at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. “But collective action is critical to actually hold a company, especially one as large as Amazon, accountable to the people essential to their business.”

Since workers approached facility management they have won:

  • Increased, yet inconsistent, preventative cool down breaks
  • Increased access to water, ice and electrolyte packets
  • Increased fans inside the facility, permanent fans yet to be installed
  • Outdoor employees have been moved indoors one time
  • Increased rotation for outdoor employees

“It is an unfortunate fact that in our country, workers have to come together to hold their employees accountable to the rules and protect themselves and their co-workers in dangerous situations like this heat,” said Sheheryar Kaoosji, executive director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. “We know that when workers are not in a position to protect themselves, we see increased violations and injuries.”

BACKGROUND

KSBD opened in March 2021 and is one of three major U.S. Amazon air hubs. Amazon currently operates approximately 14 flights a day in and out of the 24-hour facility. At the San Bernardino facility workers process prepackaged merchandise that is flown or trucked in from other Amazon facilities for outbound shipments in either planes or trucks. Freight from KSBD serves markets across the country.

Workers at KSBD work both inside a 658,500 square foot building with inconsistent ventilation and outside on the San Bernardino International Airports tarmac. Workers’ jobs require physical labor and shifts are generally ten hours a day. About 500 of the roughly 1,400 employees work outside for the duration of their shifts. Amazon also requires a high rate of work of its employees.

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About the WWRC

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), organization founded in 2011 dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California. We focus on education, advocacy and action to change poor working conditions in the largest warehousing hub in the country.

Statement of Solidarity with Workers Organizing at SoCal Amazon Facility, ONT8

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Contact: media@warehouseworkers.org

San Bernardino, Calif. — In response to Amazon warehouse workers announcing their intention to form a union at the Amazon fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, Calif., known as ONT8, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center issued the following statement:

The WWRC stands in solidarity with the people who work at ONT8 and congratulates them on their effort to form a union. In a region where more than 200,000 people work in hundreds of different warehouses, it is critical that we all stand together to call for better pay to keep up with the cost of living in Southern California, safe workplaces free from sexual harassment and injury, and a reduction in congestion and harmful emissions.

The community and the people who work in warehouses in the Inland Empire are demanding accountability from the corporations that operate the warehouses in our neighborhoods. For too long, retailers like Amazon and Walmart have extracted resources from our community. The workers at ONT8, like the workers at Amazon’s air freight facility in San Bernardino and community members in Riverside and other communities, are standing together to demand change to improve the lives of the people who live here.

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About the WWRC

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), organization founded in 2011 dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California. We focus on education, advocacy and action to change poor working conditions in the largest warehousing hub in the country.

Workers Walk Off the Job at Amazon Air Hub in San Bernardino

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Contact: media@warehouseworkers.org

In the heart of America’s Supply Chain, Amazon Warehouse Workers are Demanding Higher Pay, Safe Working Conditions

San Bernardino, Calif. — Amazon warehouse workers walked off the job Monday at a warehouse in San Bernardino, the heart of the U.S. supply chain.

Inland Empire Amazon Workers United are demanding an increase in pay, safe working conditions and an end to retaliation. About 900 workers have signed a petition calling for the base pay rate to be raised to $22 an hour. Workers currently start at $17 an hour.

“Amazon could deliver a higher standard for workers, but they don’t,” said Sara Fee, who has worked at the air hub since it opened in March 2021. “A warehouse is just a warehouse. A company is just a company. The people are what makes it all work and we are strong and united to fight for what we deserve.”

In July, 24 days reached 95 degrees or hotter at the San Bernardino airport. After workers confronted managers about dangerous heat conditions, Amazon created an additional rest area to counter heat. Unsafe heat conditions remain in many work areas, and workers are demanding additional protections.

“Working in the heat feels like you are suffocating.. You need to take breaks and you can overheat really easily. They don’t make it easy to take breaks to allow your body to cool down,” said Melissa Ojeda, who has worked at the facility for more than a year. 

The facility, also known as KSBD, is a critical leg in the Amazon logistics network and is the largest air facility on the West Coast and one of only three “air hubs” nationally.

Workers submitted a petition to the management of the air freight facility during Prime Week in July. In part the petition said “We as Amazon Associates work hard to ensure that the building hits the numbers it strives for and work together in order to provide satisfaction to all of our customers. The average rent in California is $1,700 and the average rent in San Bernardino is $1,650. With our current starting pay of $17/hr in a 40 hour work week, we make approximately $2,200 take home pay– meaning that over 75% of our income is going into rent alone….We can barely afford to live in today’s economy.”

“I would like this job to be long term. If workers are heard and there is a change, we can make it a good place to work,” said Daniel Rivera, an associate at the warehouse for over a year. 

The facility opened in March 2021 amidst community concern and opposition around job quality and air pollution. A 2018 study found that even before this facility opened, Amazon’s flights into and out of airports in Riverside and San Bernardino counties released an estimated 620,000 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The two counties also have the worst ozone pollution in the US, largely due to the warehousing industry.

Amazon promised quality jobs, but has failed to deliver. Since the opening, workers have organized in response to low pay, illness-inducing heat, and brutal working conditions. In addition to a new rest area, workers have also won an increase in pay for night shifts.

The warehouse is located at the former Norton Air Force Base. Amazon currently operates 14 flights a day in and out of the 24-hour facility. Amazon has said its goal is to operate 26 flights a day. The number of workers at the warehouse fluctuates, currently about 1,300 but more than 1,800 in peak season, demonstrating the lack of stability in these Amazon jobs.

The Inland Empire Amazon Workers United is supported by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center and many community-based organizations in the Inland Empire including Inland Congregations United for Change, Inland Empire Labor Council, Sierra Club San Gorgonio and the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice. 

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About the WWRC

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), organization founded in 2011 dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California. We focus on education, advocacy and action to change poor working conditions in the largest warehousing hub in the country.

Report: Amazon’s California Injury Rate Jumped 30% in 2021, Despite Company’s Safety Pledge

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ONTARIO, Calif.  — A disturbing analysis of newly released Amazon injury records shows that injury rates at its facilities increased by a staggering 20 percent from 2020 to 2021.  The report finds Amazon warehouse workers were seriously injured at twice the rate of other warehouse employers at 6.8 per 100 workers, as compared to 3.3 per 100 for all other employers in the warehouse industry. 

Download the PDF report. 

A review of California-specific data shows that injury rates in California increased 30 percent, to a rate that was over 60% higher than the rate of injuries at other warehouse companies in the state.

For years, Amazon’s warehouses and related logistics operations in California have led the nation in the number of serious injuries among warehouse workers. In 2021, the injury crisis for its warehouse workers got even worse. Compared to 2020, Amazon’s California warehouse workers suffered ten injuries for every 100 full-time workers – a 30% increase from the already high rate of 7.7 per 100 full-time workers in 2020. 

“Too many people who work in Amazon facilities get injured. The data shows that this company continues to prioritize speed and profits at a terrible cost to the health and well being of its employees,” said Sheheryar Kaoosji, executive director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. 

California is a major market for Amazon. In 2021, Amazon had a total of 123 fulfillment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations in California, with a total of 77,664 workers. 

The Injury Machine: How Amazon’s Production System Hurts Workers, published April 12 by the Strategic Organizing Center, examines Amazon’s safety and injury trends across a five-year period, focusing on the most recent employer-reported data from 2021 released earlier this month by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the report, the company’s crushing work pace, punitive surveillance programs and the prevalence of robotics technology only heightens pressure on workers and fuels the nation’s second-largest private employer’s alarming injury rates, despite Amazon executives’ promises to improve safety at its warehouses.

“Amazon’s back-breaking work pace is only getting worse,” said Eric Frumin, Director of Health and Safety at the Strategic Organizing Center. “The very same year that Amazon promised to address worker safety, injury rates shot up 20 percent, facilities with robotic technology became more dangerous — and Amazon spent millions of dollars to mislead the public about the reality in their warehouses. The company’s obsession with speed is crushing tens of thousands of workers each year, and Amazon seems to have no plan to stop.”

Nationally, workers at Amazon facilities suffered nearly 40,000 injuries in 2021, according to SOC’s analysis. While Amazon employed 33% of all U.S. warehouse workers in 2021, the company was responsible for 49% of all injuries in the warehouse industry last year.

Key findings in the California data include:

  • The Redlands, Calif. fulfillment Center (known as ONT9) had the highest year-on-year increase in 2021 of any large Amazon warehouse in the state. After already being the third-worst large warehouse in the state in 2020, the overall injury rate at ONT9 jumped by another 26% in 2021 – a clear indication of the management’s failure to focus on the most urgent safety problems in the state.
  • Workers at 51 of the largest logistics centers in California suffered a total of 5,848 injuries and illnesses in 2021, of which fully 5,119, or nearly 90%, were serious enough to either force the workers to stop working entirely, or require them to switch to another job.
  • At 36 of those 51 sites, so many warehouse workers were injured that the injury rates exceeded Amazon’s already terrible 2021 national average warehouse injury of 7.9 cases/100 workers.

Among these were the massive multi-thousand-employee facilities in San Bernardino (ONT5), Moreno Valley (ONT6), Rialto, Eastvale, Bakersfield, Beaumont and Fresno, which together accounted for over 1700 injuries in 2021.

The SOC report also finds that new robotic technology in 2021 that Amazon claimed “could make work safer for employees” may not have had that impact. Serious injury rates at Amazon’s sortable facilities with robotic technology grew by 20 percent from 2020 to 2021. In 2021, these facilities had a serious injury rate of 7.3 per 100 workers — 28 percent higher than the rate at non-robotic sortable facilities (5.7 per 100). 

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The Warehouse Worker Resource Center is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California. We focus on education, advocacy and action to change poor working conditions in the largest hub of warehousing in the country.

Los Angeles Worker Center Network Announces New Director

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The Los Angeles Worker Center Network is proud to announce the hire of its first Network Director, Najeeba Syeed. For the past 5 years LAWCN has worked to, support workers by building power and organizing capacity of worker centers to ensure employers and policymakers implement and improve upon the demands of the communities we organize.

We are excited that Najeeba will be bringing her deep expertise and experience to the network. Our work empowering workers from across Los Angeles will benefit greatly from her leadership. Najeeba looks forward to meeting with partners after her start date of March 1, 2022.

Najeeba joins us after 20 decades as a non profit executive, mediator, professor and government staffer. She has led organizations that offered conflict resolution services and education in communities, courts and schools. After moving to Los Angeles in 2000 upon graduating from law school, she led the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center and then served as the executive director of the Western Justice Center. The organizations worked to resolve large scale community disputes. She developed programs that addressed workplace conditions, conflicts and employer-employee relations.

In 2010 she joined the faculty of Claremont School of Theology and was a leader in training many of Los Angeles’ progressive faith leaders in the labor and justice movements in our region. During her decade long tenure there, she was instrumental in teaching courses in social justice, faith based organizing, negotiation/mediation and the history of interfaith justice movements. In 2021 she served as a government staffer in city hall.

Najeeba has also mediated many cases involving employee demands regarding wages, working conditions and workers’ labor rights. She has worked closely with groups such as CLUE, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice on campaigns, actions and public education on labor concerns. She has received numerous prestigious awards such as the 2018 Scholar – Activist Award from Auburn Seminary in recognition of her outstanding advocacy on behalf of human rights in Los Angeles.

We are delighted to have her join us as our inaugural director for the LAWCN. “I look forward to serving this network of the leading and cutting edge workers’ rights organizations in Los Angeles. Especially as we consider the importance of workers in this time of a global pandemic, I am excited to develop collaborative programs, policies and actions that build on the incredible work of these workers centers.”

The LA Worker Center Network consists of CLEAN Carwash Campaign, Garment Worker Center (GWC), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), Los Angeles Black Worker Center (LABWC), Pilipino Workers Center (PWC), Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles (ROC-LA), UCLA Downtown Labor Center, and Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC).

The WWRC is a proud part of the LA Worker Center Network and is excited to be the fiscal sponsor for this project as it expands and builds power among workers in Los Angeles.

 

U.S. Government Issues Complaint Against Major Warehouse on City of LA Property

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Trial Will Be Held on Retaliation against Direct and Subcontracted Workers

 

Port of Los Angeles, CA (March 29, 2016) – After a 6-month investigation into allegations that managers at a major warehouse serving retailers including Amazon, Lowe’s and Kmart Sears, routinely violated U.S. labor laws, harming both company employees and those employed on site by a staffing agency, Region 21 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found sufficient evidence of law-breaking to issue a Complaint against the company, California Cartage, which operates on property owned by the City of Los Angeles at 2401 E. Pacific Coast Highway.

 

The complaint, which will go to trial as Case 21-CA 160242, finds merit in the allegation that California Cartage managers:

  • Threatened workers with termination if they took collective action;
  • Interrogated workers when they took heat breaks; and
  • Discouraged workers from taking collective action through implicit threats.

 

The workers at this warehouse at the largest port complex in the nation have been demanding basic respect, safety, and fair scheduling at their workplace, and have faced retaliation since the beginning,” said Celene Perez, Co-Director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, which filed the charges and has been supporting the workers’ efforts. The workers first raised concerns in late 2014, when they filed a Class Action lawsuit alleging violations of the City of Los Angeles Living Wage. Since then, they have secured a Cal/OSHA complaint around workplace health and safety hazards that resulted in citations in November 2015, and gone on strike twice to protest the company’s persistent violation of U.S. labor laws under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

 

The complaint was issued against California Cartage management for their actions against workers both directly employed by them and subsidiary Orient Tally, and against workers employed through a staffing agency. “We know that Cal Cartage is in charge of all the conditions in here, and it’s good to see the NLRB is holding them responsible for their treatment of all workers, temp and direct,” said Victor Gonzales, a California Cartage worker who has worked at the warehouse through staffing agency AMR for over five years.

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