Vol. 80/No. 16      April 25, 2016

 

One-day strike opposes job cuts at Calif. warehouse

 
LOS ANGELES — Some 40 warehouse workers organized a one-day strike at California Cartage Co. April 6 after the company informed them that their jobs will end April 30. The company notified the more than 200 temporary workers it hires through one staffing agency that they must reapply with a new agency. Many of them have worked at the distribution warehouse for years and know from experience the bosses will try to weed out those they consider troublemakers.

Workers at California Cartage load and unload trucks and containers, many from China, full of clothes, furniture, appliances and electronics for retail giants like Amazon, Kmart, Sears and Lowe’s.

The warehouse workers had struck twice in the last seven months, each time for three days, demanding work schedules based on seniority, not manager preference. The strike last September also protested unpaid wages, management retaliation against workers involved in organizing efforts, and dangerous conditions, including lack of breaks and water while working inside containers that are like ovens in the summer. Workers and supporters held informational picket lines in February and March demanding safety shoes, paid sick days and job placement by seniority.

Through these actions, organized by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center and backed by the Teamsters union, workers have begun to score small victories, such as company-provided safety shoes and have won confidence to fight for safer conditions.

“The [staffing] agency is like a tumor,” striker John Cartwright told the Militant on the picket line. “We’ve got to cut them out so we can deal with the company.”

Some 30 workers began the action marching half a mile along the Pacific Coast Highway to the warehouse at the Port of Los Angeles, where they gave the company and the agency notice they were striking for the day.

A picket line in front of the truck entrance swelled to over 50 people.

“I’m out here because so many other places are like this,” said Marvin Quinonez, 26, one of a handful of workers joining for the first time. “I’m proud to see people from our community and neighborhood standing up. Unless we speak out, nobody is going to do anything about it.” Workers are required to physically report to the staffing agency located at the warehouse every workday and can be sent home without pay if there is no work.

“What do we want? Direct hires! When do we want it? Now!” chanted workers who kept the picket line up all day, stopping trucks for a few minutes before letting them enter the facility. Some 20 Teamster-organized port truckers joined the picket line in the afternoon. Pickets distributed informational leaflets on their fight to hundreds of workers entering and leaving the warehouse.

“We are on strike because the company keeps violating our rights and breaking the law,” Victor Gonzales, a longtime warehouse worker facing termination, told the Warehouse Worker Resource Center newsletter.

“Cal Cartage is trying to remove us. I’ve been here for seven years through a temp agency, but we need to create permanent jobs for the workers in this warehouse,” he said. “The retaliation we are experiencing has been ongoing. This strike will last one day, but our fight will go on, until we have decent jobs, until we win.”

Toward the end of the day, the workers marched into the company and staffing offices to notify bosses the strike was ending and they were returning to work the next day. At a gathering afterwards they set a time to meet the next morning to return to work together and make sure everyone got jobs.

The following day, when California Cartage refused to return three of the strikers to work, immediate picketing was initiated by the resource center, the Teamsters port division and the three workers. Inside, workers on their lunch break organized a delegation of 15 to confront the head of the staffing agency. By afternoon the three were put to work.

Neither Cal Cartage nor the temporary agency responded to the Militant’s request for comment on the strike.

“We turned the tables on them,” Quinonez said. “This time instead of them bullying us, we bullied them and got our jobs back.”

At their weekly Friday meeting, the workers decided to circulate a petition among the workforce demanding they be hired directly by California Cartage or be guaranteed employment through the new staffing agency.
 
 
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On the Picket Line
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