UC Riverside Report “Unsafe and Unfair: Labor Conditions in the Warehouse Industry” Points to Pressures in the Logistics Industry
July 18, 2012

A study released by the University of California, Riverside shows that labor subcontracting and lack of employer accountability have fostered unsafe and unfair working conditions in the Inland warehouse industry.

The report was written by a research team led by Associate Professor of Sociology Ellen Reese, and it appears in Policy Matters, a quarterly journal published by UC Riverside.

In 2010, 114,000 people were hired in warehouses in the Inland Empire, according to the California Employment Development Department. This workforce is mostly Latino, of which about half are immigrants. Temporary workers who lack benefits and are paid low wages do much of the work.

The study combines information from multiple sources and methods, including secondary literature, survey data, and ethnographic field research, including 17 semi-structured interviews with warehouse workers, warehouse managers, and representatives of temporary employment services.

UC Riverside Policy Matters: “Unsafe and Unfair: Labor Conditions in the Warehouse Industry”