By Ronald D. White|July 01, 2009
The Inland Empire has become a new battleground for unions looking to organize warehouse workers and broaden labor's clout in international trade, a $300-billion industry in the Southland.
The fledgling movement is backed by a coalition of unions with more than 6 million members known as Change to Win. That's the national labor group that broke with the AFL-CIO in 2005 and includes the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the United Farm Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, among others.
The unions' targets are warehouse and distribution centers in the Inland Empire counties of San Bernardino and Riverside, which together make up one of the nation's biggest logistics networks. The facilities handle much of the container cargo that moves through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest trade gateway in the United States.
"They want to start here because there is such a large concentration of the industry here. It's a great sandbox and it would be a real coup if they do it," said John Husing, an economist who specializes in the Inland Empire goods-movement industry.
Nearly 2,900 warehouses of at least 50,000 square feet each dot the Inland Empire. The facilities, which employ nearly 113,000 people, are operated by hundreds of companies, including some of the nation's largest retailers.
The unions' strategy is to try to build broad-based community support for better working conditions for warehouse workers, much in the way that labor was able to convince businesses that janitors were being treated unfairly.
"It is a huge, monumental task. You cannot do this one warehouse at a time," Tom Woodruff, organizing director of Change to Win, said from his office in Washington. "There needs to be a general union movement. We expect to have a long-term campaign there." Retailers said the best way to raise living standards for workers is through a strong industry and a vibrant U.S. economy.
"If we are concerned, we are concerned about efforts in Washington that would change the rules for union organization," said Rob Green, vice president for government and political affairs at the National Retail Federation.
Green was referring to federal legislation backed by Change to Win that would make it far easier for workers to join unions.
