The organizing effort comes at a tough time for the warehouse and distribution industry, which has long been one of the region's most dependable sources of jobs.
Warehouses in the Inland Empire added nearly 40,000 positions from 2000 to 2007, Husing said.
But international trade has been slammed by the recession, and Husing said warehouse employment has fallen 6.7% from the peak in 2007, with most of those losses coming this year.
If the organizing movement gains traction, he said, it might prompt some of the nation's biggest and best-known retailers to move their warehouses to parts of the country where costs are lower.
The unions see the economic downturn as an opportunity to make inroads with blue-collar employees, who they say haven't shared in the tremendous wealth generated by international trade.
Woodruff said retailers increasingly are outsourcing their distribution work to independent delivery companies and temporary agencies that offer low wages and few benefits.
That's hurting the livelihoods of workers such as Olga Romero, 55, of Fontana.
Since the recession took hold, Romero said, she has gone from working directly for a retailer that offered healthcare coverage and other benefits to accepting lower-paying jobs obtained through temporary-placement agencies. And even that work has dried up.
"I had paid vacation, a 401(k), but since I started working through temporary agencies, there have been no benefits and I have not been able to earn much more than $8 an hour," Romero said. "Since January, I have not been able to find any work at all."
A labor group calling itself Warehouse Workers United is handling the local organizing effort.
This year it has held a series of demonstrations. It has blocked the entrance of a Wal-Mart warehouse, organized a sit-in and picket line at a temporary-employment agency and blocked an intersection used by several warehouses in Ontario.
The group has yet to unionize a single workplace, but a spokesman said the struggle had just begun.
"We're not expecting to get these workers into the middle class this year, but we think our momentum is growing," said Nick Allen, campaign coordinator for Warehouse Workers United. "The workers are hungry."
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ron.white@latimes.com
