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.
