walmart supply chain

Sign Our Letter, Help Workers

September 7, 2012 by dean

My name is Marta Medina and I am a warehouse worker. In the five years I worked in a warehouse, I learned to tolerate dangerous and unjust working conditions.

One of the most humiliating experiences happened four years ago when I was eight months pregnant. I received a Walmart order to ship 2,000 boxes in one hour. I could barely lift any boxes and I felt like I might lose my baby. The whole time I was thinking: “Please baby stay in there.” I was also thinking of my family in El Salvador. My little boy is there. He is 11-years-old. I need to provide for him so I couldn’t risk complaining and losing my job. All I could do is hold my stomach and ask God for help. My employer didn’t care about the pain I was in.

After my caesarian, I returned to work and my supervisor said to me: “I don’t care that you had surgery. You’re here to work and if not, you can leave. There is plenty to replace you and do the job better.”

This is not right. No one should have to work in dangerous conditions and worry about their children and about losing a job if you speak up. It was a difficult time in my life, but now I have hope. I am working with other warehouse workers to improve our jobs and our lives and bring respect to all warehouse workers.

This September we will march from the warehouses in Riverside to Downtown Los Angeles. Please support our pilgrimage for dignity on the job. If you can’t march with workers and our families you can sign the letter we plan to deliver to Walmart when we arrive in the city.

Si Se Puede!

Workers Stand Up to Retaliation and Win

July 26, 2012 by dean

Warehouse workers filed charges to stop a recent wave of retaliation Wednesday and one worker was reinstated after being suspended indefinitely.

Workers have raised serious concerns about high temperatures, broken equipment, constant yelling and pressure from supervisors and frequent injuries inside warehouses that move Walmart goods. They filed an extensive complaint with the state of California July 18 about conditions at the NFI Crossdock, a warehouse in Eastvale, California. Warehouse operators wasted no time punishing those who stood up to improve conditions on the job.

“We are trying to make a difference and improve our jobs,” said Carlos Martinez, a warehouse worker at the NFI Crossdock. “In response our managers are making up reasons to suspend workers who are outspoken, changing up people’s assignment and trying to embarrass us if we speak up. I am not afraid.”

Martinez was suspended late last week after the he and about 20 other workers filed a serious complaint with Cal/OSHA. After workers delivered a copy of the anti-retaliation charges, he was immediately reinstated. He will be back at work Thursday, July 26.

Apolinar Rojas, who was injured while driving a forklift at the Crossdock, was required to work against his doctor’s orders. Immediately after the accident he was made to sit, broom in hand, in front of a managers’ office and mocked about his injuries. He is now on light duty while he recovers.

Workers who help staff the facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week unloading and loading Walmart goods filed charges with federal and state authorities in response to several instances of retaliation against several entities including Walmart, National Distribution Centers of Delaware, Inc., which operates the warehouse, and two staffing agencies, Warestaff, LLC, and Select Staffing, Inc., supply most of the workers on site.

*Update*

David Garcia, a second warehouse worker who was suspended after filing the complaint about health and safety, returned to work July 30. Workers – 2, Warehouse – 0!

Things happen fast in the warehouse.

Be ready to take action three ways:

Sign up for email action updates.
Like us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.

PHOTOS: No more #brokenbodies.

July 18, 2012 by dean

View the photos of workers delivering a Cal/OSHA complaint to end dangerous working conditions at critical Walmart-contracted warehouse.

Mira las fotos de los trabajadores de bodega entregando la queja que pusieron con Cal/OSHA para terminar las peligrosas condiciones de trabajo en una de las bodegas mas importantes sub-contratada por Walmart.

Workers File Detailed Complaint to End Dangerous Working Conditions at Critical Walmart-Contracted Warehouse

July 18, 2012 by dean

LOS ANGELES – Warehouse workers required to work inside dark, hot, metal shipping containers with little ventilation or water under pressure to meet high quotas in the face of frequent injury filed a complaint with the state agency responsible for workplace conditions Wednesday. (Español aquí)

Workers at a warehouse that moves goods exclusively for Walmart filed a complaint with California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) detailing more than a dozen serious violations. Cal/OSHA is the state agency responsible for protecting workers from safety hazards.

“I’m not just doing this for me and my family,” said Jose Gonzalez. “I am doing this for everyone who works at the warehouse. What we deal with is not fair, it’s not humane. I am not afraid. We have to say something.”

Warehouse workers staff the facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week unloading Walmart goods from shipping containers that arrive primarily from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and then loading the goods onto long-haul trucks destined for Walmart or Sam’s Club, a subsidiary of Walmart, stores. The warehouse is operated by National Distribution Centers of Delaware, Inc. Two staffing agencies, Warestaff, LLC, and Select Staffing, Inc., supply most of the workers on site.

In the complaint, workers describe a workplace rife with unsafe conditions including limited or no access to clean water, high temperatures, broken equipment, and unreasonable and unsafe quotas. They are charged for required safety equipment. Workers are often blocked inside the trailers they are loading for up to 30 minutes with no exit.

The complaint alleges that workers who are injured on the job are denied access to medical care or compensated time for recovery, and are often told that they will be laid off if they can’t work while injured, all in violation of California law. Workers also report a thick black dust that covers the floor of trailers and containers; they believe inhaling the dust leads to nosebleeds, vomiting and coughing blood.

“It is hard to believe these working conditions exist in Southern California,” said Guadalupe Palma, a campaign director for Warehouse Workers United. “In every warehouse that moves Walmart goods where workers have come forward we have found complaints of unsafe working conditions. This complaint is intended to improve working conditions for warehouse workers in Southern California.”

Warehouse Workers United is an organization committed to improving the quality of life and jobs in Southern California’s Inland Empire. More than 85,000 warehouse workers work moving goods for major retailers like Walmart in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The complaint comes on the heels of news that four weeks after seafood workers in Louisiana went on strike to end forced labor at Walmart supplier C.J.’s Seafood, Walmart suspended its contract with C.J.’s pending its own investigation – adding further evidence of serious labor violations in Walmart’s supply chain.

Also in June, the National Employment Law Project released a scathing new report that documents abuses in Walmart contract warehouses in Southern California and details how Walmart’s business practices adversely affect Latino workers here. Following the release of the NELP report, an employee of Mercury Public Affairs, the L.A. PR firm hired by Walmart, was caught spying on warehouse workers. The employee was subsequently fired by Mercury, which in turn had its contract terminated by Walmart.

###

LA Latina Leaders Reveal New Details about Walmart’s Negative Effects on the Local Economy

June 8, 2012 by dean

LOS ANGELES — Major retailers like Walmart are driving down wages and workplace safety standards on a scale far greater than understood before, a report released today by the National Employment Law Project shows.

The explosion of “domestic outsourcing,” the aggressive practice of contracting warehousing, transportation and goods delivery to a complex hierarchy of contractors and subcontractors, has lowered the quality of jobs in Southern California and disproportionately impacted working Latinos here.

According to “Chain of Greed”: “Walmart sets the parameters for the working conditions in (warehouses)…But when things go wrong, it’s the contractors that are blamed, while Walmart skirts responsibility for its actions and accountability for its influence over those engaged in its massive supply chain.”

Hundreds of millions of tons of goods enter the United States every year through our nation’s busiest ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Containers are then trucked through the Los Angeles basin to the Inland Empire, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where roughly 85,000 warehouse workers, mostly Latino, unpack and reload items onto trucks destined for retail outlets.

“Chain of Greed,” the report released by NELP, details how Walmart’s influence over the entire logistics and manufacturing industries has led to increasing reliance on temporary workers who are often paid minimum wage or less, which keeps labor costs artificially low and masks responsibility for these working conditions.

“In order to continue to win business, subcontractors must model their businesses like Walmart,” said Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “That means consistently lowering standards, lowering wages and cutting corners even if it means dangerous working conditions. Workers bear the brunt of this unsustainable model.”

Every year retailers like Walmart require more for less from their contractors.

“Walmart figured out how to shift the burden off the retailer and move economic risks lower down the supply chain ultimately to a low-paid, mostly Latino workforce ,” said Guadalupe Palma, a campaign director for Warehouse Workers United, an organization committed to improving the quality of warehouse jobs. “Walmart is responsible for the illegal working conditions and low wages at the warehouses that move its goods. Changing this industry means creating thousands of good jobs and improving the quality of life in Southern California.”

For Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the report’s conclusion that domestic outsourcing imposes an especially severe toll on Latino and immigrant workers in Southern California and around the U.S. is striking.

“Latinos and immigrants in this industry are facing extremely low wages and little regard for basic workplace safety standards. We see “domestic outsourcing” in many sectors like agriculture, janitorial and cleaning where people do hard work largely out of sight. Shedding light on poor labor conditions will lead to better, more humane lives for a huge part of our population.”

David Acosta, father of three young children, described his experience working inside Southern California warehouses.

“We worked long days, often 16 hours with no breaks, no time for lunch and no overtime pay. We knew it was wrong, but it seemed like there was no one to talk to to make it better. Things started to change when we stood together in the face of retaliation.”

The report calls for specific recommendations to create “greater transparency and accountability within these multi-layered hydra-like logistics chains” including better enforcement of existing laws and adding warehousing to current law that protects workers in subcontracted industries like as janitorial and agricultural work. It also reinforces Warehouse Workers United’s calls for Walmart to adopt a meaningful responsible contractor policy that would end abusive conditions in Walmart contracted warehouses.