After a six-month investigation into allegations that managers at a major Amazon.com contract warehouse routinely violated United States labor laws, harming company employees – both company employees and those employed by a “perma-temp” subcontractor – Region 21 of the National Labor Relations Board has found sufficient evidence of law-breaking to issue a complaint against the company, California Cartage, which resides on property owned by the City of Los Angeles at 2401 E. Pacific Coast Highway.
The consolidated complaint, which will go to trial in Cases 21-CA 160242 and 21-CA-162991, alleges that California Cartage managers, who oversee warehouse workers that work directly for the company and indirectly through a subterfuge of a “perma-temp” staffing agency (some for as long as 7 years) engaged in a myriad of unfair labor practices, including: threating workers with termination if they took collective action; interrogating workers when they took heat breaks; and discouraging workers from taking collective action through implicit threats.
California Cartage’s warehouse workers have taken action with the help of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ Port Division to improve their working conditions and to hold the company, which has long benefitted from a low-cost lease from the City of Los Angeles, accountable for failure to abide by the city’s living wage ordinance. Warehouse workers have filed a class action lawsuit alleging wage theft, 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.
“From the truck drivers who haul cargo on and off the docks, to the warehouse workers who handle imports before they land on retail shelves, the U.S. supply chain is riddled with Third World conditions, including wage theft, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, and the violation of workers’ rights that are protected under the National Labor Relations Act. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, working in partnership with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, fully supports these workers’ fight for justice, and we intend to hold the City of Los Angeles accountable for abuses on their property,” said Fred Potter, vice president, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and director of the Teamsters Port Division.
Jose Rodriguez, who has worked at California Cartage for over 20 years, noted that this has been a long struggle.
“We have been organizing for over a year, permanent employment for all workers, and workplace health and safety,” said Rodriguez. “Instead of this, the company has retaliated against us. We plan to stay strong and fight until the City of L.A. holds California Cartage responsible for treating us with the respect as required by law.”
Source: Justice for Port Drivers