This following clip shows how the surge of warehousing and trucking has had detrimental impacts on the quality of air in Inland Empire communities. The rise and dominance of the logistics industry has hit the area hard and we have paid for it with the quality of our air and the breadth of the employment opportunities available. When 25,000 diesel-emitting trucks blow through our communities everyday, it is clear how our region has been taken advantage of and our health betrayed for the sake of profit. With one of the world’s wealthiest companies, Amazon, becoming the Inland Empire’s largest private employer, it seems like there would be more opportunity for equity throughout the region. Instead, what has spread throughout our communities, along with poverty, are thick layers of smog, covering schools and homes and clustering around workplaces. For workers, especially those in the transportation industry, this means traveling to and from work along routes that are heavily polluted in order to get to worksites that are hubs for diesel emissions. Workers then go home to their families in neighborhoods that have become places of rest for this toxic air as well. Pollution and the health concerns that come with it pervades, threatens, and shortens the lives of our communities. And because there is no way to contain the toxicity of this pollution, the dangers and health risks that Inland Empire community members face daily are threats to everyone. 

That is why the Warehouse Worker Resource Center is working alongside our partners to pass legislation that will curb these patterns and mitigate the harmful effects that all warehousing has on our communities and the environment. Our work on AB485, a law that would require warehouse corporations that take government subsidies to disclose information about their operations and what they will offer the community in terms of jobs and benefits speaks to the increasing need to make these powerful corporations answer to the community members they are setting up shop next door to. 

More information on our partners, the Sierra Club and their My Generation Campaign can be found here: