Warehouse Worker Resource Center

Improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California

Workers

Income Tax Resources

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California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) and Young Child Tax Credit (YCTC):

  • If a person makes $30,000 or less, they may qualify for the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC). The CalEITC and YCTC are now available to taxpayers who do not have a Social Security Number, but file their taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN),regardless of their immigration status.
  • Website: [link to qualify] [link for general information] 

Golden State Stimulus:

California will provide the Golden State Stimulus payment to families and people who qualify. This is a one-time $600 or $1,200 payment per tax return. A person may receive this payment if they receive the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) or file with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).

Golden State Stimulus 2: [link to updated stimulus information] 

Free Tax Preparation:

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA):

The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program offers free tax help to individuals who file simple returns and generally make $57,000 a year or less. This program offers IRS-certified volunteers provide free basic income tax return preparation with electronic filing to qualified individuals.

Utilities and Phone Service

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Water and Utility Shutoff: 

Water systems are prohibited from shutting off water during the COVID-19 crisis due to non-payment.

  •  Please go to [link] to report any water shutoff or reconnect
  •  Please call 1-844-903-2800 if you need translation help to file a report. 

Low-Income Home Energy Assistance:

  • Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federally funded program that can offer a one-time payment to help:
  •  Pay heating or cooling bills, even if the person uses wood, propane, or oil.
  •  In an emergency or energy crisis, such as a utility disconnection.
  • In addition to helping with paying the energy bill, LIHEAP can also provide in-home weatherization services for Improved energy efficiency, and health and safety.
  • Website:https://csd.ca.gov/ 
  • Or call 1-866-675-6623.

Riverside Resources:

https://csd.ca.gov/pages/Services.aspx?SCI=Riverside&SCU=Riverside%20County&PT=H 

San Bernardino Resources: 

https://csd.ca.gov/Pages/Services.aspx?SCU=San%20Bernardino%20County&PT=CM 

Los Angeles Resources:

https://csd.ca.gov/Pages/ServiceCityList.aspx?SCU=Los%20Angeles%20County 

 

Phone Services

California LifeLine Program:

  • The California LifeLine Program is a state program that provides discounted home phone and cell phone services to eligible households.
  • Website: https://californialifeline.com/en 
  • Provides help with status and phone services. Has a limited time limit, but has the possibility of being extended. It’s free at first, and then later you will have to pay. 

Housing

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Housing is Key:

  • Financial help with mortgage, rent, and eviction protection through the pandemic. [Link]

San Bernardino Resource for Housing: 

  • San Bernardino Emergency Rental Program : Income qualified renters in the City of San Bernardino with a valid COVID financial impact are eligible for up to 12 months of past due rental and utility assistance from March 13, 2020 up to the time of application. [link]

Riverside Resource for Housing:

  • City of Riverside Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program: County of Riverside’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program information and to apply for rental and utility assistance.  [link]

Los Angeles Resource for Housing: 

  • Housing is Key LA:  Website that helps in mortgage, eviction protection, and rent if you’re eligible. [link]

Housing for Harvest:

  • Housing for the Harvest is a program that offers temporary hotel housing to agricultural and food processing workers, including farm workers, who need to be isolated due to COVID-19. 
  • Situated in multiple counties including Riverside
  • Mainly towards the aid of farmworkers.
  • [link] 

HHPWS: 

  • Building Strong Communities through Housing, Jobs & Community Action. The vision for the HHPWS is a county where all residents have access to opportunities to achieve and chart their own destiny and where poverty is rare and of short-occurrence.
  • [link] 

Project Roomkey: 

  • Project Roomkey gives people who are experiencing homelessness and are recovering from COVID-19 or have been exposed to COVID-19 a place to recuperate and properly quarantine outside of a hospital. [link] 

Food Assistance and Support

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Find a food bank near you. 

San Bernardino Food Banks:

  • Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County: A program with various resources including housing and food banks in San Bernardino.  [link] (909) 723-1500
  • Feeding America Riverside/ San Bernardino: Resource to look for distribution centers, and benefit help for food. [link] (951) 359-4757

Riverside Food Banks: 

Find (Food in Need of Distribution): We are the emergency disaster response regional food bank recognized by the state and county as the first line of defense against hunger. [link] 760) 775-3663

  • Los Angeles Regional Food Bank: Includes volunteering events, food banks, and monthly giving.(323) 234-3030 [link] 
  • Westside Food Bank: Access to free nutritious food through food acquisition and distribution, and by engaging the community and advocating for a strong food assistance network.                       (310) 828-6016 [link] 

Calfresh (EBT, SNAP):

  • State benefits program that provides food benefits to help people buy food at most grocery stores and farmers markets.People and families with low income can apply for CalFresh any time. 
  • 1-877-847-3663 (1-877-847-FOOD) [link] 
  • Undocumented: [link] 

Only Applicable if:

–you have a son or daughter with Citizenship

-has a green card

-Has refugee status, asylum, or parolee status

-Has, or is applying for, a U-Visa or T-Visa

-Is an applicant for VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) relief

-Is a Cuban or Haitian entrant

 

Not Applicable if:

-They are here on a student, work, or tourist visa

-They are here under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)

-They are here under TPS (Temporary Protected Status), unless they meet the other qualifying factors

-They are undocumented

WIC: 

  • WIC is a state benefits program that provides nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and benefits for healthy foods. WIC can also help with finding health care and  other community services.
  • Serves babies and children up to age 5, pregnant women, and new mothers.
  • Working families and migrant families are welcome to apply.
  • call 1-888-942-9675 or apply online at: [link]

Disturbing Injury Rates at Amazon Facilities

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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.

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