San Diego Needs a Warehouse Worker Ordinance

By Jim Miller

Recently, labor and community activists gathered at the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Hall in Mission Valley to hear about the plight of San Diego Warehouse workers and a policy solution being proposed by the County that might serve as both a local fix and a model for the rest of the state.  

The panel included testimony from warehouse employees about how the strategy employed by Amazon and others following their lead churns workers in and out for low pay in terrible conditions until “their bodies are broken” by speed-up and repetitive motion injuries that are pervasive among their ranks.  

Sal Abricia of Teamsters Local 542 and Sheheryar Kaoosji of the Warehouse Workers Resource Center explained how despite the union-busting tactics of employers and the brutal conditions that the workers endure such as broiling summer temperatures, they were still organizing and making their voices heard against all odds.  These workers experience work-related injuries at twice the rate of others in private industry, suffer from exposure to high levels of diesel fumes, and are paid at a substandard rate.  

The warehouse industry exploits these workers by ensuring that many of them are hired as contingent labor with little to no job security.  As with all contingent labor, employers know that the insecurity that comes with these jobs makes individual workers disposable and more easily forced into accepting dangerous conditions.  And if these kinds of jobs become the norm in our region, it will undercut the labor standards for workers in other sectors as well.  

Thus, if you care about raising the bar for all workers, this struggle is a key battleground for maintaining safety, living wages, and dignity on the job.  

The solution being crafted by the Center on Policy Initiatives, Teamsters Local 542, the Environmental Health Coalition along with San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher and Vice Chair Nora Vargas is a Warehouse Worker Ordinance that would improve wages and job quality by providing a living wage of up to $25 an hour while establishing reliable work schedules.  

It would also increase worker safety by requiring zero emissions vehicles inside warehouses, monitoring air quality, and strengthening workers’ ability to fight abusive work quotas.  

What is particularly appealing about this aspect of the ordinance is how it marries environmental and worker justice by protecting employees’ health and limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The construction of the necessary EV charging stations and rooftop solar on sites would also open the door for the creation of other good union jobs.  

In addition to this, the proposed Warehouse Worker Ordinance would prioritize local labor, promote full-time work by limiting the use of temporary employment agencies, and ensure worker retention rights upon changes of ownership.  In sum, the aim is to end the relentless exploitation of contingent labor and foster the creation of living wage jobs.  

This ordinance would benefit workers beyond San Diego by providing a template that other localities could use to protect workers across the state of California and the nation at large.  In concert with the growing movement to organize at Amazon and elsewhere, this kind of policy is precisely the type of government action that can help create a more just economy for all of us from the bottom up.  

For more on the Warehouse Worker Ordinance to here: https://cpisandiego.org/justice-for-warehouse-workers/

To sign the petition to stop the abuse of warehouse workers, go here: https://mailchi.mp/sdcounty/warehouse-ordinance