Timeline
For more than ten years, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center has worked alongside warehouse workers and community members in the Inland Empire to transform working conditions through organizing and policy. Below are some of our highlights of our work over the years.
January 2009
Warehouse Workers United is founded to bring together warehouse workers in Southern California and to work closely with community groups in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
June 2011
Warehouse workers participate in a comprehensive and groundbreaking research project to better understand the occupational hazards in the warehousing industry. The UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program published the results as Shattered Dreams and Broken Bodies.
August 2011
Domingo Blancas falls ill while working on a hot day at a warehouse in Chino, Calif. starting a more than ten-year fight to win protections from heat for workers at indoor worksites.
October 2011
Workers file a lawsuit in federal court against three Walmart contractors and subcontractors, alleging millions of dollars in stolen wages over ten years. A federal judge issued several orders and injunctions in favor of the workers, including a temporary restraining order against a mass firing of workers who had filed the lawsuit.
California Labor Commissioner Julie Su’s office investigates the largest Walmart warehouse in the region, run by Schneider Logistics, and cites two staffing agencies for more than $1 million in violations.
September 2012
Warehouse workers at the NFI Crossdock in Riverside County, a facility used exclusively by Walmart contractors, go on strike to protest low wages and unsafe conditions.
This group of warehouse workers risked their jobs and livelihoods and helped shed national and international attention on the Inland Empire, the nation’s largest hub for logistics. They demonstrated how reliant the warehousing industry was on “perma-temping” – the practice of employing third party temp agencies that pay workers minimum wage and provide limited access to benefits or advancement.
September 2012
Warehouse workers, clergy and community members launch a pilgrimage from the Inland Empire to Downtown Los Angeles.
The WalMarch was a 6-day, 50-mile march from Ontario to downtown Los Angeles to bring attention to poor conditions in Walmart’s domestic supply chain. It concluded on Sept. 13, 2012.
Gov. Jerry Brown signs AB 1855, authored by then Assemblymember Norma Torres, into law. The legislation created joint responsibility between warehouse operators and temporary staffing agencies in the warehousing industry.
May 2014
Walmart contractor Schneider agrees to pay $21 million in backpay to warehouse workers who were systematically shorted pay for years. While warehouse workers successfully petitioned to have Walmart named as a defendant in the case, Schneider agreed to the settlement.
September 2016
The WWRC works with Sen. Connie Leyva to author and pass legislation to create the first indoor heat standard in the nation covering more than one million workers in our state. Senate Bill 1167 called on the Occupational Health and Safety Standards Board to adopt a heat illness and injury prevention standard for all indoor employees at risk of heat illness. Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 1167 into law.
September 2018
Warehouse workers at California Cartage/NFI, the largest warehousing and drayage company at the Ports of LA and Long Beach, endured a long history of wage theft, health and safety and other violations. In 2014 they launched their campaign for justice in the supply chain with a class action lawsuit filed against the company for not paying the living wage on City of Los Angeles property.
In 2018 the U.S. Department of Labor orders Cal Cartage to pay $3.5 million to nearly 1,500 warehouse workers.
May 2020
During the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the WWRC works in coalition to secure the one-time Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants, a first in the country, and the expansion of the Golden State stimulus to support excluded immigrant workers out of work due to the pandemic. Immigrants and Latinos comprised the majority of workers in California’s industries at highest risk of pandemic-related deaths (UC Merced).
August 2020
The WWRC’s work leads to the formation of the Safety Net for All Coalition, which now comprises 150+ organizations with thirteen basebuilding groups, including the WWRC, serving as decision makers. Through this immigrant worker-led statewide coalition, we fight to make unemployment insurance for undocumented workers permanent in the state of California.
March 2021
Amazon opens KSBD, an air hub located at the San Bernardino Airport, in March amidst community concern and opposition around job quality and air pollution. Amazon promises quality jobs that it fails to deliver.
September 2021
WWRC works with Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez to pass the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, or Assembly Bill 701. The first-of-its-kind legislation went into effect in January 2022. The law bans work performance rates that force workers into unsafe or uncompensated work; empowers workers to take concerns over work rates to state enforcement agencies; and provides workers who speak up or ask about their work rates with retaliation protections.
August 2022
Amazon workers at KSBD launch their campaign to raise pay and to protect workers from illness-inducing heat and injuries related to the physically intense work.
More than 150 workers go on strike twice leading to onsite improvements like a new rest area, an increase in pay for night shifts, an overall pay increase, access to fans and water, and other safety measures.
July 2023
During a summer heat wave, Amazon warehouse workers file a complaint with Cal/OSHA as temperatures break records and workers risk heat illness.
November 2023
After months of empowering, informing and organizing community members, the San Bernardino Airport Communities learns that they won – the Inland Valley Development Agency’s (IVDA) announced it would not move forward with the Airport Gateway Specific Plan (AGSP). The project would have displaced thousands of residents in the cities of Highland and San Bernardino and taken away much needed housing from residents in order to build more warehouses.
January 2024
Amazon is cited for putting workers in danger with limited access to shade, water and rest in high heat. These citations lead to more worker-won safety improvements at the Amazon air hub.
April 2024
The Warehouse Worker Resource Center launches its first worker-led membership open to community members and warehouse workers in the Inland Empire with the goal of expanding workers’ voices in the region.
June 2024
Amazon is cited twice for $5.9 million for violating California’s Warehouse Worker Protection Act, or AB 701, at two large facilities in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
July 2024
More than a million workers laboring in warehouses, kitchens, laundry rooms and other hot indoor settings across California are protected by the indoor heat illness prevention rule, which went into effect July 23, 2024.
January 2025
Community driven organizations, including the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, join together under the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice to launch the community powered Rapid Response Network to deliver real time updates and resources to support the immigrant community across the Inland Empire.
May 2025
Cheers to one year! The Warehouse Workers Resource Center celebrated our membership anniversary. A full year of learning, growing and making an impact together.
June 2025
The Los Angeles Worker Center Network (LAWCN), a coalition of eight worker organizations including the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, joined a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to challenge ICE’s stops of Southern Californians based on racial profiling.
September 2025
San Bernardino Airport Communities organized to stop a massive warehouse development in the cities of San Bernardino and Highland that would have led to the loss of homes for more than 2,600 residents.
