Hemet City Council
November 12, 2024

16 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
holders, and consumers must force Amazon to make its
workplaces safer (Strategic Organizing Center 2023).

The high injury rates found at Amazon and other warehouses are related to employers’ fixation on speed, with workers being continuously surveilled by productivity
monitoring systems that pressure them to move and
work at a dangerous pace. In response, California
passed Assembly Bill 701 (2021), which aims to protect
workers from the use of unreasonable production
quotas that lead to health and safety and other labor
law violations (Strategic Organizing Center 2023).

Many warehouse workers reported being under relentless pressure to meet unreasonably high productivity standards, often leading to stress and unfair penalization, particularly for those physically less capable of handling heavy loads quickly. “They would know our
rate and how many boxes we were doing, like per hour.

And if we weren’t like doing enough, they would come
talk to us,” said Melissa. Marcos recounted times that
he would be going so fast that he was sweating, but
managers would still tell him that he was going too
slow. He also described how there was a “big board” in
the workplace that showed all of the employees’ names
and the rate at which they were working, which was
akin to a “public humiliation” board. Christina, on the other hand, said she was thankful for the incentive to
exercise every day.

Several of the warehouse workers we interviewed
described extremely hot temperatures in warehouses.
“During the summer the warehouse does have air conditioning, but since it’s such a big warehouse it’s almost impossible to cool off,” Christina said. “And in the
area that we pick, since there’s so much product, the
aisles are small, the heat just gets trapped.” Melissa
described how “people got heatstroke from like, being
in the warehouse… If we would try to, like take breaks
and stuff, they’d be like, oh, why aren’t you working?...

I witness[ed] one lady. She was like, a bit older. She
worked outside a lot. She was the one directing the
truck. And she collapsed.”
Mental health concerns, including concerns related to
mental stress, alienation, social isolation, and boredom, are also commonly reported among warehouse workers
(Emmons Allison and Reese 2023). The warehouse
environment often lacks supportive interpersonal
relations, leading to feelings of undervaluation and
insincerity. Favoritism and cliques contribute to a sense of unfairness and alienation, while the vast and solitary nature of the work leads to isolation and disconnection from a supportive work community. “People look down
on you. Nobody’s ever motivating you or complimenting
you,” said Kay.

The repetitive and monotonous nature of warehouse
work was noted by several workers, including Melissa,
as mentally taxing. Xavier described the job as physically and mentally draining, while Tabitha and Kay discussed the boredom and physical strain associated
with tedious, repetitive tasks. Mike explained that as
a packer, he has been asked to stand in one spot for a
full 12-hour shift. He takes the items that are handed
to him, places them into a box, seals it, and repeats the process again and again for the full shift. Day after day, he returns to the warehouse to place items in a box and seal it. Mike said there is no satisfaction in completing a task because it never ends. The work is unbearable
because he cannot move.

Truck Drivers
With their long hours, discussed above, long-haul truck drivers are at risk of experiencing vehicular accidents.

They must constantly stay alert while driving to scan for driving hazards, including deer and road traffic. However, many drivers, especially when they are working long hours, find that they tend to “become complacent
on the road” and to “get tunnel vision out there at night, especially when you drive through the night,” stated
Mateo.

Sleeping away from home, often in the back of a truck,
reduces the quality of sleep among many long-haul
truck drivers. Drivers sometimes need to leave their
engines on overnight to keep the heat or air conditioning on if it is very cold or hot. “Yea, I keep my air conditioning on—the heat is no joke” (Simranjit). The engine makes a lot of noise so this practice often reduces the quality of sleep among long haul drivers. Although
some drivers, like Mateo, Alex, and Sahib bring their
own food with them, many of the food options on the
road, such as fast food, are not healthy.

Others describe the impacts of back-to-back round
trips between the IE and East Coast in terms of the
persistent stress of making time, getting a return load, and being attentive to noises and road conditions, to
make sure their engine and tires will get them to their destination without any mishaps. “After driving for 10
years,” Gurjant said, “a person’s body gets tired. You
eat, sit, and sleep. I got high blood pressure from driving. There’s no time for exercise.… [We are] constantly on the road.” Drivers sometimes skip or reduce their

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 17
meal and other work breaks to get to their destination
in a timely fashion.

Sitting for long hours every day takes its toll—it’s bad for your back, and it interferes with drivers’ ability to get sufficient exercise. As Mateo put it, “You just go to shit.” Although some drivers go to the gym and exercise after
work, long work hours, lack of daylight or good weather conditions in winter months, and many days of travel on the road can make it difficult for long-haul truckers to get sufficient exercise. Basic hygiene is also a challenge for drivers, who do not have toilets in their trucks. “You have to wait for the next truck stop or navigate accordingly.” The same is true for showers. “I might not be able to shower today because the showers book up” or
“there’s a four hour wait,” Sahib said. Mateo summed it up: “If I were to just sit down, do my job every day. It is detrimental to your health.”
Electronic monitoring of drivers is also on the rise,
contributing to stressful working conditions (Alimahomed-Wilson 2020). Joe described how his truck with a previous employer was equipped with a driver-facing
camera that tracked his eyeballs. This was stressful for him, he said, because if he looked down, the camera
would identify him as being in a distracted state, and it would begin recording. His current truck does not have
a camera, and he is relieved that he is more trusted to do his job.

Parking and Routing
Truck drivers find that they have to pay for traffic tickets for parking in no-truck zones even when there is no
other place to park and they are forced to do so to
deliver their goods. Carlos described how he “can get
literally ticketed for just parking at a local Walmart.” When he’s “driving for eight plus hours a day, and wants to go to the bathroom or eat,” it feels inhumane to be
cited just for taking a parking spot.

Finding lots in which to park while at home in the IE
has become increasingly difficult and expensive. Since
so much formerly open space is now occupied by “a
lot of warehouses,” truck drivers face a dilemma: “You
can’t park on the streets or on the side. ‘No commercial parking,’ are signs over and over. I don’t want to risk getting towed. And wherever I try to find parking, it’s … full price is way too much. If I go to a truck stop in the area, there’s never any parking because everybody
parks their truck there, leaves their truck there for
weeks on end because they’re not taking any loads”
(Simranjit). Some blame it on “these big companies.

They’re just buying up all the land” (Maninder). Truck
lots take up commercial real estate, so as property
prices “have gone significantly higher, in order for the truck yards to break even, especially for new owners,
they have to upcharge.” “It used to be like $150 to $200 a spot, but now they’re charging $500 plus” (Sahib).

Others noted that the locations where trucks have
more restrictions are biased in terms of race, class,
and ethnicity. Commenting on the much-protested
difference in warehouse developments between south
and north Fontana (Gongora 2020), Simranjit said, “Pull up the map of Fontana [showing] south Fontana and
north Fontana. All the commercial traffic is on the south side. All the north side has houses, they have plazas
of convenience stores. You’ll see road signs saying ‘No trucks over five tons,’ ‘Local deliveries only,’ ‘Trucks:

No right turn, no left turn.’ And on south Fontana’s side, you’ll barely see one.”
Gurjant and Karamjit noted the contradictions of living close to warehouses where it is more convenient to pick up loads. Karamjit remarked, “It is dangerous to have
“warehouses all close to residences. One person was
killed because they got run over by a trailer. His car
went underneath the trailer and immediately died.” The
traffic is terrible and the costs of living there have risen.

But, Gurjant explained, as warehouses “keep expanding
outwards away from where people are living, it will be
further to drive to pick up loads.”

PAY, BENEFITS & COSTS
Warehouse Workers
Wages within the goods movement sector depend on
the type of job, workers’ education and training credentials, and collective bargaining agreements (ICF Incorporated, LLC 2019). Within the interviews conducted, many workers expressed concerns over unfair pay practices, such as low pay and newer employees
earning more than long-term workers. For example,
Melissa reported that when she was hired by Amazon
as a warehouse worker she was offered $17 per hour.

Several years later, new hires were offered $19 per
hour, but there were no raises for incumbent workers.

Samantha, employed as a picker at an Amazon warehouse, also desired better compensation. Samantha said, “I would like to work 40 [hours per week] and get paid the same amount as working 60. Yeah, but I have
bills to pay, so 60 it is.” As a result, Samantha typically works long shifts, often beginning her workday at 7:30 AM

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18 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
PRABH
Location: Fontana
Occupation: Truck Driver

WORKER PROFILES
Prabh is a 43-year-old man, born in Punjab into a family of farmers. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1999, first to San Jose then Fontana, in order to enter the trucking
industry. He drove a truck in order to be self-employed and self-sustaining. He and his parents received high
school educations in Punjab, and he had some college
in the U.S. His three brothers and one brother-in-law
are in trucking, which Prabh explains was because
they could get into it without having a higher education or having completed a degree.

Prabh started out doing long-haul, interstate driving
for five years, and now does short-haul refrigerated
and dry van truck trips within Southern California,
starting and ending in Fontana. He does not own his
own truck. He said he keeps track of changes in the
industry, such as those pertaining to emissions, technology, and safety and operation challenges, through social media and Punjabi papers and cultural events.

For a period of time Prabh made trips in and out of the Port of Long Beach, where he became familiar with
electric trucks and the fact that there were government subsidies to purchase them. At $300,000, however, new electric trucks are well beyond his means even with subsidies. He also said there are many
“unknowns” regarding maintenance. He is skeptical
that he would ever be able to afford one, but he would
be happy to drive one if charging it were as convenient as pulling into a gas station now to fill up.

Prabh lives in a house about 15 minutes from warehouses and experiences the noise and traffic from trucks. He wishes there were better planning so truck
traffic would not affect schools and residential neighborhoods. He also wishes there were more government involvement in helping truckers with concerns like better pay, good health care plans, and safety.
and leaving work at 6:00 PM. Similarly, Kay reported
that she felt pressure to work overtime in order to make more money to pay her bills: “I should be able to work
a regular eight-hour shift and make some good money
out here in California because [the cost of] everything is high! They should be paying us well. We are tax-paying
citizens…. We are getting taxed off everything, so why
not raise everything [prices and wages]?!”
Kay suggested that, given the high costs of living in
California, warehouse workers should earn at least
$20–25 per hour. Xavier viewed his employer’s practice
of offering small incentives to motivate workers to work hard as insufficient: “The joke is, they want you to work 10 times harder to make their department look really
good, and then, in return you’re getting a 25-cent slice of pizza on your break.”
Although warehouse jobs might offer health care,
medical visits can come with copays that add up or with strings attached. Marcos described how he obtained a
bad injury on the job, which caused him to have to go
to the doctor and be absent for a week. He went to his
own primary care provider because that is who he was
most comfortable with, but because of this, his company would not pay him for the full week he was absent. His
employer argued that in order to get paid for the time
off, he had to use the company doctor.

Not all warehouse workers were dissatisfied with
their pay and benefits. Christina’s company offers a
beginning hourly rate of $22. In addition, her employer provides workers with two reviews a year to determine
their performance. If employees are exceeding their
metrics, they are provided with a 50-cent raise and a
$600 bonus check. Christina also receives holidays off, 12 hours per month of paid vacation, and a 5% employer
match for her 401(k) retirement account.

Truck Drivers
Since the deregulation of trucking in the 1980s, and
increasing prevalence of subcontracting within the
industry since the 1970s, union density and working
conditions among truck drivers have declined. Truck
drivers often experience financial problems due to
low pay and unpredictable work hours. Owner-operators also have to pay out-of-pocket expenses for their vehicles, fuel, insurance, and vehicle repairs and maintenance. This further reduces their take-home pay
and often puts them into debt (Viscelli 2016; Smith et al. 2014). James expressed wishing he was part of a union

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 19
so he could have access to health care and retirement
benefits.

Some truck drivers incur considerable debt through
exploitative lease-to-own contracts that charge high
interest rates for their trucks (Viscelli 2018). Even
when they own their trucks, the costs of maintaining
them are substantial. As Sahib put it, “You want to have savings…. I might not work for the next month. My truck might break down. So, the biggest thing is don’t get into debt; that’s how you weather through all these market
fluctuations.” Drivers’ incomes tend to be unpredictable because demand for their labor is seasonal, and often
fluctuates over time due to many factors beyond their
control, such as those related to the “just in time”
consumer economy.

Various drivers interviewed claimed that the pay rates
for carrying cargo have declined or are too low given the high cost of living and their work expenses, including
the high price of fuel. They describe how the pandemic
brought a lot of business, but also led to inflated truck prices. “During COVID everybody saw how much money
you can make. And everybody got so greedy. And then
they’re like, Oh, it’s going to keep happening forever and ever. Everybody went out. They bought multiple trucks.

That’s why now you see, like people are going out of
business because they can’t afford it,” stated Maninder.

Other truck drivers believe “the industry is getting
oversaturated, …all these newcomers, they’re killing the rates” (Varinder).

Some drivers have to pay high fees to brokers that
further reduce their incomes. Maninder described how,
if he gets a long haul direct from a customer, he might get $6 a mile, but “that same load I got from a broker, the broker, he was quoting me, he’s like, ‘Oh, the best I can do is like $2’…. That’s the story every broker will tell you, ‘Dude, that’s the best I can do.’” Alex expressed that he wished he could be part of a union because
he believes that unions could push for legislation that would regulate brokers.

Drivers are usually only paid for the time they spend
driving, or by the mile. They are not paid for wait times, although they often must wait a long time to load and
unload cargo (Viscelli 2016). The American Transportation Research Institute (2023), an industry think tank, has repeatedly found driver detention (an industry term for wait times) to be one of the top 10 issues facing drivers, with frequent delays of six hours or more to load or unload. Simranjit explained that at “bigger warehouses
like Amazon or Walmart or Costco, my appointment will
be at eight. I won’t be free from there ’til 11, sometimes XAVIER
Location: San Bernardino

WORKER PROFILES
Occupation: Warehouse worker
Xavier is a Mexican-American man in his early twenties who is originally from Los Angeles. He currently works as a forklift operator in a warehouse in the
Inland Empire for a major retailer. Often working
10–12 hours per day, five days a week, Xavier brings
in $27,000 annually. For the past three years, his daily work routine has been to pack semi-trailers with
products that are distributed to retail stores across
the country.

Xavier turned to warehouse work in 2020 when he lost
his immediate family to the pandemic. Overnight,
Xavier found himself unhoused. He moved to the
Inland Empire where he could find more affordable
housing and a full-time job that required little experience.

Xavier is not attached to his current work. He sees it
as a stepping stone as he finishes school. He is a fulltime student who will receive his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering this year and intends to
find a job within that industry. He lives close to his
campus and lives frugally. For now, he is dependent
on his warehouse work. He said he prefers having a
job that he doesn’t have to think about after clocking
out for the night. He also does not seek advancement
or worry about termination.

Even though his warehouse work is transitory, Xavier
is critical of it being regarded as a viable long-term
option for other workers. He described it as “slaving
away for a small amount of money when you know
someone on the other end is profiting millions of
dollars.” He said the work is “physically and mentally
depressing,” and he doesn’t wish it on anyone. “Who
wants to walk around for 12 hours without music playing through their heads to distract them from the fact that they’re participating in capitalism and completely selling their life away for a small paycheck? That’s
gonna get them by for a month, and then after the
same thing, over and over and over and over again.”
He is hopeful things will one day change.

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20 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
12, because they’re such a large area. You’re waiting
about an hour to even get a [dock]. By the time you get your paperwork and out the door it is about three, four hours there.”
One driver, Randy, said that his current position pays
him hourly for all of his work time, including waiting, loading, and unloading. Nonetheless, he said, the cost of traffic tickets adds up. Many customers are located on
streets that are no-truck zones. As a result, he receives tickets that go on his personal driving record and that he has to pay for out of pocket.

ENTRY, SKILLS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR

ADVANCEMENT
Warehouse Workers
Lack of Other Options: Workers like Mike and Kay
expressed frustration over the lack of opportunities in other industries, feeling pigeonholed into warehouse
work despite aspirations for different careers. “School wasn’t really my thing,” Jonny explained. “Trying to find a job was hard. No one was giving me a shot, let alone
hiring me, so I just took the route that my mom did…
I really wasn’t trying to stay in that role, but I had no choice.”
Opportunities for Advancement: Many workers believe,
like Kay, that there is no financial motivation to continue doing warehouse work and that promises of promotion
are rarely fulfilled. This view is reinforced by common hiring practices for management positions found within
the warehouse industry, including Amazon, which give
preference to workers with college degrees rather than
years of warehouse work experience (Emmons Allison
and Reese 2023: 112-113). A few warehouse workers
had positive views or experiences however. “They don’t
know what we want unless we voice our opinion,”
Christina said. “I recently just had my review. And that’s what I told my supervisors, that I was looking into going into cross-training into other departments just to get
experience on everything.”
Alfonso pursued upskilling on his own, paying out of
pocket to obtain forklift training. His forklift certification was ultimately valuable because it qualified him for his union job. He then thought he could obtain a truck
driver position with a different employer and again paid out of pocket for a commercial driver’s license (CDL)
program, comparison-shopping for the one with the
lowest fee. He did not ask his union employer to cover
the cost, he explained, because his workplace didn’t
employ distribution drivers and he didn’t want management to know he was considering leaving.

Unfortunately, Alfonso didn’t realize that many companies hiring truck drivers required one or two years of experience. He ended up remaining at his job and, with
his CDL, was able to take on a yard truck driving role, which involves repositioning trailers within the truck
yard. It came with a $2-per-hour wage increase on top
of his warehouse floor job.

Truck Drivers
Training and Retention: There is a seemingly endless
cycle of headlines about the so-called truck driver
shortage. Research suggests, however, that the alleged
shortage is largely a myth perpetuated by large trucking companies. For example, Semuels (2021) and Fuller
(2023) indicate that there is actually an excess of drivers with commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) in comparison
to the jobs available. According to Semuels (2021),
competition among drivers for scarce jobs, along with
inadequate government regulations, has led to a “race
for the bottom” that exacerbates bad working conditions and contributes to a significant problem of worker
retention within the industry. Companies with revenues
exceeding $30 million experience turnover rates around
92%.

Furthermore, the use of drivers is often inefficient, as brokers can pit a large number of drivers against each
other, resulting in lower wages and working conditions, and longer wait times for load pickups. Researchers
contend that the deregulation of the trucking industry
and decline in unionization has contributed to the
decline in labor standards in the industry. Following the deregulation of trucking, wages in truck driving fell 44% from 1977 to 1987 (Semuels 2021).

The industry also faces challenges in training and training-related debt for new drivers. Federal and state governments have funded driver training since the COVID pandemic’s onset. Many drivers, however, are required
to enter training contracts that require drivers to work for the same company that provides their training for a certain period post-training in order to repay the cost (Viscelli 2016). Several drivers we interviewed, including Randy and Roberto, said they took such opportunities
and fulfilled the post-training work period requirement, but they did not stay with the carrier that provided the training. James and John opted to attend driving school, both completing their programs in eight months. Alex

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 21
learned the trade through an informal apprenticeship
with an uncle who was already in the industry.

Systemic Gender Bias: Gender inequalities and barriers
to women’s entry and retention are persistent in the
trucking industry, despite some gains in terms of gender diversity. Research finds that diversity and inclusion policies are becoming more common within the industry
and that an increasing percentage of those employed in
managerial positions, safety and dispatch positions, as well as truck drivers are women compared to the past.

There is a very notable lack of gender diversity and a
massive need for positions among technicians. It is estimated that an additional 200,000 technicians in the US will be needed over the next 10 years, but schools are
only producing 3,500 new technicians per year (Women
in Trucking Association 2023).

As of 2021, women made up only 4.8% of 1.37 million
truck drivers nationally. Women truck drivers often
encounter gender discrimination and sexual harassment, which discourage many from remaining in the field (Eavis 2023). Policies such as same-gender training, while intended to reduce harassment, have been criticized for functioning as barriers to women’s participation in trucking (Eavis 2023; Fernández and Molloy 2022). Because there are so few women truck drivers, it is often impossible to find one to train another.

In 2023, three women truck drivers filed a discrimination complaint against Stevens Transport for its same-gender training policy. Apparently such policies
are still common within the trucking industry despite
a 2014 federal ruling that prohibited them. Proponents
of these rules, including trucking companies and Ellen
Voie, who founded the nonprofit Women in Trucking
Association, argue that these policies help to reduce
sexual harassment of women drivers because trainers
spend weeks on the road with their trainees and often
sleep in the same cabin. Yet, critics of these policies contend that sexual harassment would be better
addressed through other mechanisms, such as anti-harassment policies or providing hotel rooms to truck drivers when traveling (Eavis 2023).

We made repeated efforts to interview women truck
drivers for this report but were unable to secure any
interviews. We recommend that future research be
conducted on the experiences of women truck drivers in
the IE.

EMPOWERMENT & REPRESENTATION
As prior research and our findings here have demonstrated, workers across the nation are seeking to join workplaces that have supportive work environments
and policies and give workers opportunities for growth.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s (2022) Job Quality
Toolkit includes job quality principles such as workers having the ability to voice their concerns without fear of employer retaliation, to engage in decision-making
processes, and to provide insight on an organization’s
future work initiatives.

In order to cultivate a workplace where workers truly
feel empowered and have their voices heard, employers
must develop regular processes of communication
with workers, create a system where workers can file
complaints and receive protections from retaliation, and conduct workforce assessments to assess workers’ satisfaction. Most important, employers should encourage and support workers’ rights to organize, form unions,
and engage in collective bargaining (U.S. Department of Commerce 2022). Unionization establishes democratic
mechanisms for workers’ concerns to be addressed,
and collective bargaining agreements—contracts negotiated between workers and management—are the only legally enforceable way that workers can ensure their
rights and interests are protected.

On top of the strategies for worker empowerment
and representation outlined in the Job Quality Toolkit, California’s High Road Training Partnerships (HRTP)
initiative offers guidelines on designing worker training programs in ways that foster worker voice and worker
power. The term high road in HRTP refers to approaches
to work and the economy that “are guided by policies
that jointly uphold and advance the social values of
shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and
shared decision-making” (González-Vásquez and López
2021: 8).

In the HRTP model, worker training programs are an
opportunity for workers to develop and share their own
strategies for industry and worker success. Workers
can provide insights on training and workforce needs,
provide recommendations on wraparound services
to reduce any barriers that prevent trainees from
becoming successful in the field, and effectively design and execute programs themselves (UC Berkeley Labor
Center 2020).

In its study of how worker voice empowers both current
workers and workers in training, the UC Berkeley
Labor Center (2020) showcases how one of the core
HRTP concepts, whole person support, recognizes that

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22 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
workers’ lived experiences are a form of expertise they bring to the job and that it is in the overall interest of the workplace to create cultural alignment between workers and workplace culture. Experienced workers can be tapped as peer mentors for new workers. In these
ways, industries can provide underserved and underrepresented workers with leadership opportunities and access to career advancement, thereby increasing overall job quality. Union collective bargaining agreements can help ensure the long-term success of measures
that center worker voice (González-Vásquez and López
2021: 27).

The Union Difference
Although the details of union contracts differ across
employers, unionized workers tend to be paid more than
non-union workers, have greater access to employment
benefits, and have more rights on the job (Fieveson
2023). What is the degree of union density among
transportation and warehouse workers?
Figure 7 shows the valid percentages of employed
workers (age 16-64) in select occupations in transportation and warehousing that are union members and covered by a union contract in the IE using IPUMS data
sourced from the CPS (Aug 2021 – Aug 2023).3
It shows
that, among the 8 occupations shown, union density
is greatest among truck drivers. About 15 percent of
truck drivers belong to a union and about 22 percent are covered by a union contract. Viscelli (2016) finds that, among truck drivers, unionization tends to be greatest
among those that do not carry full loads, such as parcel delivery.

Among blue-collar warehouse workers, industrial truck
and tractor operators (or forklift drivers) have the highest union density. About 10 percent of workers in these jobs belong to a union and about 12 percent of them
are covered by a union contract. In contrast, packers
and packagers have the lowest union density among
blue-collar workers. Less than 5 percent of workers
in this occupation belong to a union and only about 7
percent are covered by a union contract.4
Using national data reported by Hirsch, MacPherson,
and Even (2024), we find that, compared to the U.S.,
union density is greater in the IE in four of the eight occupations shown in Figure 7 but it is lower among
laborers, packers and packagers, transportation and
material moving workers’ supervisors, and transportation, storage, and distribution managers. The difference between national and regional union density among
SAHIB
Location: Fontana
Occupation: Truck Driver and dispatcher

WORKER PROFILES
Sahib is a 26-year-old Punjabi American male whose
parents immigrated to the U.S. in the nineties. He
lives with his parents and three other siblings in
Fontana, where he grew up. His father started driving
a truck in 1990, and he has other relatives who are
also in the industry. Sahib describes going to the truck yard with his father as a youth to work on his truck,
and notes the growth in the size of the truck yards,
the number of trucks parked there, and the cost from
$150 or $200 a spot to $500+ today.

Sahib graduated from college and, during COVID
in 2020, got his Class A license in order to help his
father. His father owns one truck, but started off working for other companies. He never expanded beyond one truck because he didn’t want to worry about the
additional risk or to put trust in other drivers. Sahib, however, also does truck dispatching.

Sahib recognizes the challenges of the job, remembering that his father missed a lot of Sahib and his siblings’ special events because he was on the road.

As an independent owner-operator, his father handles
his own truck maintenance and repair, so there was
rarely any down time.

Their family keeps up with industry news from
Punjabi language radio and word of mouth from
their immediate community. Though some people in
their community are competitive and don’t help one
another, Sahib said, most “back each other up.” He
explained that an immigrant from Punjab might first
get a job in a gas station, “but you can only work at
the gas station and grind for so long, you know?” Most
of Punjab is agricultural, and political problems with
India have resulted in unequal access to jobs and land
ownership, segregation, and restrictive legislation
that makes it “hard to make a dollar”. Punjabi men of
Sahib’s father’s generation brought a work ethic from
their impoverished agricultural background that Sahib
said his generation doesn’t have or want.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 23
MATEO
Mateo is a Chicano male in his early thirties who has been working for UPS for 15 years. After working his way up, he now earns $42 per hour as a driver. He grew up in the Inland Empire and has been working since he was 16, starting in fast food and transitioning into warehouse work before UPS. “My union contract helped me out of poverty,” he said. Nonetheless, Mateo and his wife rent an apartment in Rancho Cucamonga because they cannot afford a house.

Mateo has driven both long-haul and local runs for UPS. He currently works local runs, driving an average of 11 hours per day. During the COVID-19 shutdown, he recounted, management pressured workers to be “heroes” and do twice the amount of work for the same pay. With their Teamsters union contract, however, workers were able to receive a form of hazard pay by signing up for the “9.5 list.” Signing up for the list limits a worker’s daily hours to 9.5, and if a worker exceeds the limit three times in one week, they’re guaranteed triple pay.

Mateo is active in his union, Teamsters Local 63. His first exposure to labor organizing began when he supported striking workers at Republic Services, a waste management company, in San Diego. When the workers obtained their contract, Mateo said, “I saw the impact of supporting your fellow brothers and sisters. Even if it’s [a different] industry.” He described going door-to-door as an organizer and asking residents about the impact of the logistics industry on the Inland Empire: “A lot of the responses [are], ‘You know what, man, I tried to leave this place. … I’m trying to get out of here.’ They see it as a lost cause. They see it as these companies are going to win no matter what … I see that as an opportunity to empower people, saying, ‘The only way big corporations win is with an uninformed electorate.’” Occupation: Truck Driver
Location: West San Bernardino County
Doug is a Black man in his mid-thirties and former warehouse worker who grew up in and around the Inland Empire. He holds an AA in automotive technology from Chaffey College. He currently lives with and cares for his grandmother, helping her with routine household tasks.

Doug’s first warehouse job was at a non-union manufacturing facility in Riverside County that stored its goods in an adjoining warehouse. Although he mostly worked in the manufacturing side of the facility, he obtained his forklift license through his work obtaining parts from the warehouse side. He did not like the management because they were disrespectful to workers. He recalled an incident when a physical fight nearly broke out between the workers and the manager after the manager called the workers “a bunch of monkeys.”
More recently, Doug worked for a freight company in San Bernardino whose workers were unionized by Teamsters Local

63. He was proud to be working at a union job and was encouraged that his co-workers expressed that they were “ready to work and willing to strike.” He earned a relatively low $17.50 per hour because the workers had lost some of their wage gains through concessionary contract negotiations. The union contract still included good medical, dental, and vision insurance, however, which he greatly appreciated.

Doug enjoyed his medical benefits and working with pro-union coworkers. He said, however, that hours were long, with occasional mandatory overtime, and he developed muscle strain from heavy lifting and poorly maintained equipment. The work was also dangerous. Doug described how one trailer he was working in almost tipped over, and he observed other workers being injured from trailers tipping over or goods falling on them, including one worker who was hospitalized and had to go on disability. The management, he said, did not train workers sufficiently. Workers relied on one another to learn how to work safely and sometimes intervened to protect each other from accidents.

After about a year of working at this facility, Doug was laid off when work slowed down. He now commutes to a public transit job in Orange County.

DOUG
Location: Riverside and San Bernardino
Occupation: Warehouse worker

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24 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
supervisors is especially striking. In the IE, there are apparently no supervisors that belong to a union,
compared to 10.1% in the United States (see Table 10 in Appendix 1 for details).

The Teamsters is the largest union to represent workers in Southern California’s TDL sector, with IE Teamsters
belonging primarily to Local 63 (warehousing and
trucking) and Local 848 (mostly trucking). Both Teamsters locals include workers across Southern California in a region that is far larger than the IE. A few other Teamsters locals, such as 630 (food distribution) and
638, represent smaller numbers of warehouse workers
employed by particular companies. Other unions that
represent TDL workers in the IE, albeit in smaller
numbers, include the United Auto Workers (auto parts
distribution center workers), the United Food & Commercial Workers (distribution workers at meatpacking facilities), and the United Steelworkers (distribution
workers at manufacturing facilities).

Teamsters union contracts typically provide workers
with medical benefits as well as retirement benefits or pensions. Teamsters members usually have access to
various health benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance as well as vacation time.5
The UPS
Teamsters contract, the largest private sector union
FIGURE 7. PERCENTAGE OF EMPLOYED WORKERS THAT BELONG TO A UNION AND ARE COVERED BY A UNION

CONTRACT IN SELECTED TDL OCCUPATIONS
contract in North America, is widely regarded as among
the best in the industry. Teamsters’ new UPS contract
adopted in 2023 provides UPS drivers and warehouse
workers with good wages and retirement pensions.

According to Eidlin (2023), this contract “eliminates the two-tier driver classification that had sparked widespread member anger in the 2018 contract. It provides sizable wage increases, especially for the lowest-paid
part-timers, which will do more to raise the wage floor at UPS than any previous contract. It also requires
UPS to create more full-time jobs, provide protections
against excessive heat, restrict management surveillance, and limit forced overtime, among other gains.” Alfonso, a Teamsters member, described his transition
from a non-union job to his current union position. At
the non-union job, he was earning $19.75 per hour after working there for four years, and he paid about $480
per month for insurance. When he moved to his union
position, he took a pay cut, starting at $17.77. However, he received health insurance for his family of four with no premiums. He also had a clear path to promotion
after his fifth year due to the seniority provisions of the workers’ collective bargaining agreement. Now on his
sixth year with his current employer, he receives $28.88 per hour and is entitled to five weeks of vacation time per year. He also notes that his employer offers a pathPage 34 of 76

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 25
way to advancement by hiring management staff from
among rank-and-file workers—he has actually turned
down a management position, because he thought there
was more job security in being part of the union rankand-file—and offers $100 to any worker who makes a suggestion for improvement that is then implemented.

Alfonso has seen the $100 incentive given out multiple
times.

As elsewhere in the United States, union members and
leaders in the IE region are very concerned not only with the rapid growth of non-unionized TDL employers, such
as Amazon, that compete with companies with unionized TDL workers, such as UPS. The recent demise of Yellow, a unionized trucking company, is another
concern for workers seeking union employment in the
region. Yellow, which had been in operation for 99 years, filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after experiencing a series of mergers and mounting debt, resulting in the loss of
30,000 jobs nationwide, 22,000 of which were Teamster
positions. Unfortunately, Yellow’s demise could also
mean trouble for the Central State Pension Fund, a
multi-employee pension fund that already received a
federal bailout in December of 2022 (Page and Biswas
2023). Nonetheless, many transportation and warehouse workers are continuing to organize in the region and some have made gains, even amid enormous
challenges.

Worker Centers
In the absence of unions, worker centers play a critical role for worker empowerment and representation. A
2022 UCLA Labor Center study found worker centers
to be an essential complement to the public workforce
development system because of the way in which
they combine “workforce development, community
organizing, strategic labor law enforcement, and policy advocacy … in an attempt to break down the systemic
barriers to economic prosperity” (Lee et al. 2022: 2).

Racism, discrimination and systemic vulnerability due
to immigration status, and the predominance of temporary and subcontracted work in an industry are issues that may create extra barriers to unionization but that can still be addressed by worker center organizing, policy, and legal efforts (De Lara, Reese, and Struna 2016).

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC),
formed in 2011, has helped to organize, educate, and
provide services, including health and legal services,
to warehouse workers and their families in Southern
California, especially the IE. Warehouse workers that
they helped to organize won access to more secure
jobs, wage increases, and other improvements in their
working conditions.

WWRC has also helped many warehouse workers to
win historic legal settlements worth millions of dollars against various employers, including temporary agencies and third party logistics firms, that engaged
in wage theft or violated other labor laws, including
workplace health and safety regulations. WWRC and
its allies in the labor movement have also promoted
and won the adoption of new state policies to better
protect warehouse workers’ rights and workplace
health and safety, such as new indoor heat regulations
and new restrictions on work quotas within warehouses
(Emmons Allison and Reese 2023).

In 2022, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the two largest racial bias lawsuits in California history on behalf of 300 Black warehouse workers at two warehouse operators’ facilities, primarily employed through temporary agencies (Roosevelt 2022).

The research, organizing, and workforce development
efforts of the Inland Empire Black Worker Center help
illuminate how a historic case such as this one is part of a larger pattern of the systemic, intergenerational discrimination and disinvestment that Black workers and their families particularly face (Smallwood-Cuevas et al. 2020). James, a truck driver, described how the Drive-ACheck (DAC) report card system, which tracks drivers’ records over 10 years in the industry, is wielded as a
tool of systemic discrimination and exclusion. He said
that often drivers of color are targeted and “blacklisted” in the industry because of negative DAC reports. When
workers lack a union and collective bargaining power,
worker centers can step in to foster mutual support and cultivate collective leadership around shared issues
(Lee et al. 2022).

Worker Organizing
IE Amazon Workers United and other Amazon worker
organizing: Among warehouse workers, Amazon workers have conducted the most visible organizing efforts in the IE’s TDL sector over the past 10 years, in part
due to their sheer numbers across the region. Amazon
worker organizing in the IE has been a core part of the larger movement in the region to gain greater community benefits from the TDL sector . Perhaps the longest sustained Amazon worker organizing campaign has
been at the Amazon Air hub in San Bernardino, under
the name of IE Amazon Workers United (AWU). AWU has
staged multiple walkouts to call for pay increases,safer working conditions, and no retaliation for worker

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26 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
organizing (Emmons Allison and Reese 2023; Yee 2022).

Since AWU workers are assigned to tarmac operations
in extreme heat conditions, their calls for a safer
workplace have included access to cold water, breaks to cool down, and fans while working indoors (Warehouse
Worker Resource Center 2023b).

As workers at an air hub, AWU members do not receive
additional compensation for their high-risk conditions.

As one worker, Rex, explained, “Because we have
associates standing in front of aircrafts with running
engines … we are given extra responsibility, but there’s no extra compensation for it” (cited in Salazar 2023).

AWU workers have also expressed concerns about
Amazon hiring anti-union consultants to surveil workers and prevent them from joining the union. According to Jamieson (2023), Amazon paid external consultants
$3,000 a day to host meetings to convince workers
not to unionize, spending over $14.2 million dollars in 2022. AWU has filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint
against Amazon for threats, surveillance, and retaliation (Salazar 2023).

Amazon warehouse workers, both in the IE and in other
U.S. regions, have been inspired by the 2023 UPS Teamsters contract. Some hoped that the new UPS wages could raise standards for similar occupations across
the logistics industry (Leon 2023). Amazon workers in
Southern California have also pursued new strategies,
such as unionizing delivery drivers who are technically employed by third-party contractors (or delivery service providers [DSP]. In 2023, unionized delivery drivers in Palmdale, Los Angeles County, who delivered packages
for Amazon but were employed by a DSP (Battle Tested
Strategies), took their strike to Amazon facilities across the region and across the country. The drivers continue to protest their layoffs which resulted from Amazon’s
decision to terminate its contract with Battle Tested
Strategies after the drivers had successfully unionized with the Teamsters and negotiated their first union
contract with this DSP (Sainato 2023).

THE FUTURE OF TDL WORK IN THE IE

AUTOMATION
Given the central role of the TDL sector in the IE economy, the impact of automation on workers is of great concern. Muro et al. (2019) find that, between 1980 and 2016, the implementation of information technology
produced 54 million net new jobs nationally. Yet, most of these new jobs were on the so-called lower and higher

MELISSA
Location: Riverside
Occupation: Patient care assistant, former
warehouse worker

WORKER PROFILES
Melissa, a 26-year-old Mexican-Cambodian woman, is
a patient care assistant and nursing student who previously worked as a warehouse associate at Amazon.

She obtained the warehouse job after being laid off
as a medical scribe during the pandemic shutdown.

Although Melissa had read about the fast-paced work
environment, she said she was taken by surprise by
the large number of orders received each day and
the intense supervision. Some of her friends were
terminated for not meeting the expected work rate,
and Melissa received a warning for her work rate.

Being petite, Melissa said she struggled to haul large
containers that weighed approximately 300 pounds.

Along with sorting packages for routes, Melissa had to
stock heavy boxes of bags, which resulted in a shoulder injury. She said she did not report the injury, fearing her managers would not believe her, and instead often requested days off or a different position for the day to let her shoulder heal. When it was not possible
to switch roles, Melissa said she worked through her
shoulder pain, performing the same motions that had
resulted in her injury. Even after leaving the job, she continues to feel the pain and has been required to
undergo physical therapy.

Melissa said that technology could prevent many
worker injuries and health concerns. She also wished
that warehouses would introduce large ventilation systems. After witnessing a coworker collapse from heat illness during a shift, Melissa sought to take breaks to cool off, but her productivity was questioned.

Melissa wanted to draw attention to the pay gaps
between long-term employees and newly hired ones.

She was hired at a wage of $17 dollars per hour. Later, she witnessed new employees being offered $19 per
hour, which was more than her pay after two and a
half years on the job. Melissa believed it was unfair for newly hired employees to earn higher wages that were
not offered to longer-term workers.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 27

TABITHA
Location: San Bernardino
Occupation: Warehouse worker

WORKER PROFILES
Tabitha is a Black woman who began working in the
warehouse industry at age 18, accumulating over 20
years of experience within the field. She has worked
in multiple warehouses through temporary staffing
agencies, earning about $30,000 annually. Along with
her three children and fiancé, she financially and
emotionally supports two of her younger siblings.

Although staffing agencies do not provide their workers with health care, pay increases, or pensions, Tabitha
thought they offered certain advantages. She found that their workers tended to be paid $1–$2 more per hour
compared to direct hires. Temp agencies also make it
convenient to find employment. Tabitha recalled walking off a job site one morning and finding a new warehouse
position later the same day.

Nonetheless, working through temp agencies prevented
Tabitha from being recognized for her hard work and
being promoted to management. As Tabitha described,
“They started asking me to train the temps. After this, I was like a lead, but I didn’t get paid like a lead.” When Tabitha asked her supervisor about being hired directly as a manager, she was told her responsibilities would
still include intense physical labor and offer a lower
wage than her temp position.

Tabitha described experiencing numerous unsafe
working conditions, including working with moldy fruit
for eight hours a day, working in extreme heat and cold, and hearing stories from her uncle about being crushed
by a machine while working at a warehouse. At one of
her jobs, she said, a fire broke out and “they just wanted us to … continue working without no explanation.”
Tabitha also recounted experiences with sexual harassment.

Tabitha made it clear she would never return to a
warehouse job due to being undervalued, mistreated,
harassed, and placed in danger. More than anything,
however, it was the never-ending, monotonous work
that made her unwilling to return. She is now developing her own videography business. Along with seeing her company flourish, she would like to see her children graduate from high school and go to college, and for her son to “never work in a warehouse ever in his life.”
ends of skill distribution rather than middle-skill,
middle-wage jobs.

Among the groups projected to be most impacted by
automation are men, young adults ages 16–24, and
Latinos, American Indians, and Black workers, since
they tend to be employed in industries and occupations, including those in the TDL sector, that are likely to be heavily impacted by automation (Broady et al. 2021;
Muro et al. 2019). Jobs based on repetitive tasks,
whether physical or cognitive, have been and continue
to be at high risk of automation. Muro et al. (2019) estimate that about 78% of light truck and delivery service driver positions will be affected by automation. Other
researchers similarly find that workers employed as
warehouse laborers, truck drivers, and forklift drivers are among those with the largest need for skill development and training in the goods movement sector due to the impacts of workplace automation (ICF Incorporated,
LLC 2019).

Trucking
Currently, automation in trucking can take the form of
software—the use of integrated transportation management systems that analyze data and employ machine learning to calibrate loads, routes, and other operations in real time—and hardware, in the form of driverless
trucks.

The prospect of automated trucks presents a significant threat to the job security of truck drivers. Companies
investing in this technology argue that autonomous
trucks can increase efficiency, reduce accidents, and cut costs. However, the human cost of such advancements
is substantial. Many truck drivers fear that automation will eventually lead to widespread job losses, fundamentally changing the industry landscape. As the technology continues to develop, the trucking industry
faces the challenge of attending to the livelihoods of
millions of truck drivers and helping truck drivers to
obtain the training needed for new positions (Gittleman and Monaco 2020; Viscelli 2018).

Researchers vary in their estimates of the extent of job losses that are likely to result from automation within trucking. In an analysis of how susceptible more than
700 occupations are to machine learning and robotics,
Frey and Osborne (2017) found that 47% of all US jobs
are at high risk of automation, with heavy-truck drivers at a 79% risk. Gittleman and Monaco (2020) estimate
that as many as 419,00 truck drivers with a primary
range of 201 or more miles could be displaced through

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28 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
what they call “high automation,” one step short of full automation (15). Viscelli (2018) projects that over the next 25 years, up to 294,000 long-distance drivers could be replaced by autonomous trucks.

Research by Arntz et al. (cited in Gittleman and Monaco 2020) suggests that a change in methodology for how
one classifies jobs changes the percentage of jobs
that are at risk due to full automation. Gittleman and
Monaco (2020) claim that estimates of job losses from
automation and driverless trucks within truck driving
may be overstating job displacements because they
include occupations that are not directly involved in
driving or likely to be impacted by the automation of
driving. They also note that even when automation does
take place, labor market impacts are likely to depend on the occupation, tasks, and how the rest of the economy
responds to automation.

Various factors are likely to discourage or slow down
the displacement of drivers through automation. First,
truck drivers do more than simply drive. They provide
security for goods, maintain their vehicles, and complete paperwork. Such additional tasks could help to mitigate job losses to automation. Researchers also
suggest that “first- and last-mile problems” will still require a professional driver. Meanwhile, regulation and the infrastructure required for autonomous trucks to
operate safely, such as systems for handling vehicles
that break down in transit, could discourage widespread use of driverless vehicles (Gittleman and Monaco 2020;
Viscelli 2018).

Automation does not simply replace human labor with
machines; it can also change the types of jobs needed
and the nature of the tasks performed within jobs
(Gittleman and Monaco, 2020). For example, there are
various modes for the use of driverless trucks, some of which are more reliant on human drivers than others
(Viscelli 2018).

The Teamsters have been heavily involved in attempting
to preempt the most destructive projected impacts of
autonomous trucking. In 2022, Doug Bloch, then the
political director for Teamsters Joint Council 7, called on a U.S. House of Representatives transportation
subcommittee to ensure that autonomous trucks
maintain human drivers trained to intervene for safety; to maintain data on injuries, crashes, fatalities, and
malfunctions for regulatory purposes; and to support
training programs to assist workers during the transition to autonomous vehicles.

In line with Bloch’s testimony, the Teamsters supported Assembly Bill 316 (2023), which required a trained
human operator in autonomous vehicles weighing over
10,000 pounds in order to prevent accidents and injuries on the road. AB 316 aimed to ensure public safety and
create high-quality jobs for workers (Teamsters 2023b).

Although the bill passed the California Legislature with bipartisan support, it was vetoed by Governor Gavin
Newsom. In 2024, the State Legislature will consider
Senate Bill 915, which, if passed, would give local jurisdictions the authority to regulate autonomous vehicles (Cortese 2024), as well as a new version of AB 316.

Both of these bills enjoy Teamsters support (Teamsters
2024).

Warehouses
Similar to trucking, warehouse automation takes the
form of both software and hardware. Integrated warehouse management systems, or process automation, can cut back on inventory paperwork, use machine
learning to adjust operations in real time, and employ
algorithmic labor management systems that track
worker productivity. Physical automation can include
conveyor belts; scanners; voice-directed picking;
automated guided vehicles, such as driverless forklifts; automated storage and retrieval systems, which can compress goods into a more compact space; and
autonomous mobile robots, which cut down on human
workers’ walking time. Forms of automation may be
implemented permanently or as a subscription-based
service during peak times (Gutelius and Theodore 2019).

Gutelius and Theodore (2019) find that technological
change is unevenly distributed across the warehouse
industry. While some warehouses may utilize conveyors
or track goods with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, they may also use older software systems
that rely on human decision-making. And while technological uptake may be more common in e-commerce warehouses, which emphasize speed, Gutelius and
Theodore (2019) note that many e-commerce distribution operations are outsourced to third-party logistics providers (3PLs), who may be less inclined to accommodate physical automation because of the relatively short length of their contracts (3–5 years) and the fact that they may serve multiple customers with a range of
product characteristics.

According to Gutelius and Theodore (2019), the
introduction of automated machinery can reduce the
physical impact of workers’ tasks, but it can also deskill and displace workers and subject them to new health

16.A

State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 29
and safety problems. For instance, worker monitoring
technologies, as discussed in our interview findings, can put pressure on workers to increase their pace to an
unsafe level. The negative impact of productivity monitoring technologies on worker health and safety is well documented in research on Amazon workers (Gutelius
and Pinto 2023; Strategic Organizing Center 2021, 2022).

Alfonso, one of the warehouse workers we interviewed,
described his experiences with automation at a unionized wholesale food distribution facility. His employer adopted an autonomous guided vehicle (AGV) to shuttle
pallets around the facility. The AGV was supposed to
adhere to a path marked by a yellow line. However,
the AGV would often lose sight of the yellow line and
“get lost.” It became a safety hazard, Alfonso said,
because it would get in the way of workers when it was
not supposed to. He also noted that the AGV’s battery
would die, so it would stop in the middle of the path, and workers would have to attend to it when that was not
part of their role.

Alfonso recounted that workers ultimately resented
that their employer had invested in the AGV when
the company could have given human workers more
overtime and weekend hours. The workers used their
union collective bargaining process to ensure that if
any automated equipment was adopted in the future,
it would come with labor hours for a human to oversee
the equipment.

The demand by workers at Alfonso’s facility for automated equipment to be assigned a human supervisor aligns with research that calls for workers to be
upskilled to manage new technologies. Gutelius and
Theodore (2019), however, predict that such recommendations will not be implemented and that workers will instead be deskilled as technology removes the ability
to engage in decision-making and critical thinking. The reliance of many warehouses on 3PLs and temporary
agencies to meet their demands for labor complicates
the implementation of workplace protections, making
temporary and contract workers especially vulnerable
to safety problems related to technological change.

Gutelius and Theodore (2019) predict that full,
human-replacing automation is “little more than a
remote possibility over the near to medium term” (67).

Nonetheless, policymakers, workforce development
professionals, and labor organizers should be attentive to the nuances by which partial automation is implemented at regional facilities. If properly managed by companies, Nantee and Sureeyatanapas (2021) suggest,
the introduction of new technologies in some cases can
help warehouse floor workers to gain analytical and
computing skills, and also increase “soft” skills such as problem-solving. They draw on two case studies to show
that “no layoff” policies can pave the way for worker
upskilling.

To further protect workers from the negative impacts of technological change, Muro et al. (2019) urge federal,
state, local, business, and civic leaders to work together to ensure technological advancements support workers’ living standards. Collective bargaining by union representatives, as in Alfonso’s experience, can protect workers from job displacements, prevent significant
impacts from technological changes in the workplace,
and shield workers from intrusive forms of electronic
surveillance (AFL-CIO 2019). By involving workers in
decision-making processes, collective bargaining helps
ensure workers continue to have access to good jobs,
including benefits such as full-time employment, union
representation, and retirement pensions.

The national contract negotiated between the Teamsters and UPS in 2023 is one example of how collective bargaining agreements can address the impacts of
automation for workers. The contract bans the “use
of drones or driverless vehicles to transport, deliver
or pick up packages” and requires that if UPS were
to seek to reverse this ban, the company would have
to negotiate the change with the union (Teamsters
2023a: 17). The contract also requires existing union
workers to perform any “new or modified work” created
by technological change, and to be trained to do so if
necessary (Teamsters 2023a: 18–19). Although Teamsters UPS workers have been able to use the collective bargaining process to maintain a voice in technological change, UPS operates a non-union freight forwarding,
warehousing and distribution, and customs brokerage unit, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, which recently opened a facility in Kentucky designed to be operated
by 3,000 robots and 200 human workers (Black 2023).

For reasons such as this, broader labor protections that prevent logistics operators from evading collective bargaining through corporate restructuring are necessary.

ELECTRIFICATION
The TDL sector in California is currently being reshaped by new federal and state regulations, programs, and
funding that aim to improve air quality and respond to
the climate crisis by requiring and facilitating the transition to zero-emissions transportation. These changes are the outcome of many years of activist demands by

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30 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
environmental, health, and other community organizations.

Among the most significant of these new policies is
the state’s mandate to transition to zero-emissions
transportation by 2045 (Governor’s Executive Order
N-79-20). The rule serving this mandate that will have
the most direct impact on logistics fleet operators
is Advanced Clean Fleets, which was adopted by the
California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2023 and
is pending approval by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) as of January 2024. The initial timeline
for Advanced Clean Fleets required all drayage trucks
registering for operation at seaports and railyards to be zero-emissions beginning January 1, 2024, with the goal of phasing out any combustion-powered drayage trucks
by 2035. Advanced Clean Fleets also mandates a timeline for phasing out all other medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by 2045 (California Air Resources Board 2024).

A small number of IE heavy-duty truck drivers, dealers, and technicians began to experience the transition to
battery electric trucks through demonstration projects
by 2021. Through a project called Volvo LIGHTS (Low
Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions), funded by
California Climate Investments, two IE-based fleet
operators deployed battery electric heavy-duty trucks,
yard tractors, and forklifts at their yards in Chino and Ontario. A truck dealership in Fontana also participated in the project, and San Bernardino Valley College’s
Heavy/Medium Duty Truck Technology program piloted
an electric truck technician course. In addition, a
community organization trained first responders in the
potential hazards of high-voltage electrical equipment.

As part of the lessons learned from Volvo LIGHTS, the
project team highlighted the need for charging infrastructure technicians (Volvo Group North America 2022).

Electric truck demonstration projects and early-adopter fleets indicate how workforce needs, whether skills
or occupations, will change in the near term for large
fleet operators. For dependent contractors, however,
the issues are distinct (for the definition of dependent contractors, see p. 14). The zero-emissions mandate
hearkens back to the state’s earlier efforts to implement rules to lessen trucking emissions. As Appel and Zabin (2019) show, several thousand trucks most likely
fell out of compliance with the 2008 Truck and Bus Rule due to compliance costs falling on misclassified contractors, even as the companies for whom they transported freight reported hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (12–13).

SOPHIA
Location: San Bernardino

WORKER PROFILES
Occupation: Full-time student, former
warehouse worker
Sophia migrated from Central America at age 11 and
is currently in her early thirties. At age 18, she began working in warehouses due to having limited employment opportunities because of her Temporary Protected Status (TPS). With the instability of TPS, Sophia had
to work two full-time jobs and help her sister clean
buildings part-time. This work helped her pay for the
childcare of her two children out of pocket.

She later met her current husband, who has financially
assisted Sophia in enrolling in community college and
enabled her to work one full-time job to spend more
quality time with her family. Sophia decided to enroll
in community college after realizing that she wasn’t
spending quality time with her children, that she wasn’t making a lot of money, and that she didn’t want to work in warehouses her whole life. “I didn’t spend quality time with my kids,” she said. “I was always at work … I was
always tired. And I had to do it because my kids were
everything for me.”
While working at Amazon, Sophia worked 10–12 hour
shifts during peak season and stayed up late to finish
her homework. During midterms, she used her Personal
Time Off (PTO) to prepare for exams and communicated with her professors about being an employed student-parent. She also planned her school schedule
around her work schedule to use less of her PTO.

Sophia decided to leave Amazon and continue her
journey in higher education when she found out she was
pregnant. A big motivation was being diagnosed with a
high-risk pregnancy. “[The] doctor put in the doctor’s
note that they don’t want me to take the stairs; they don’t want me to be standing for more than an hour. And they
[Amazon supervisors] don’t care,” Sophia said. She was
given verbal warnings and write-ups for not reaching her daily performance goals. “I remember crying because
nobody was helping me and I feel that I was gonna lose
my baby because I was already bleeding.”
As a full-time college student preparing to apply to graduate school, Sophia continues to experience barriers that inhibit her success, including childcare subsidy restrictions. Sophia hopes employers and higher education institutions can create spaces where student parents can thrive along with their children.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 31
KARLA
Karla is a 49-year-old Mexican woman and undocumented immigrant. She lives with her domestic partner and three sons.

She previously owned a third-party logistics business but is currently unemployed. She estimated that her household’s total annual income is $80,000, with members of her household receiving public benefits such as SSI and CalFresh. Karla said her legal status has had an economic impact on her in terms of available employment opportunities and ability to receive public assistance.

Karla’s logistics business was established by her husband. While working as a welder, he saved up enough money to buy his own truck. As a truck driver, he saved from 1998 through 2016. In 2017, he used his savings to invest in his own business.

Karla’s husband passed away due to COVID in 2021. At that point, Karla took charge of all operations, including hiring a dispatcher and a truck driver to do the long-haul driving her husband had previously done. Karla said the dispatcher and truck driver with her company worked as independent contractors. Any employment benefits they received, she said, came from contracts with bigger companies.

Karla decided to close the business in May 2023. She cited intense stress from being responsible for any and every eventuality; low profit margins, if any; few jobs; and an accident involving the truck driver. Karla said that brokers take a large percentage of income per cargo job. During the business’s final year, it was in the red. When she closed the company, she said she was left with $6,000.

Occupation: Unemployed; previously a small business owner Location: Victorville
JACK
Location: Redlands
Occupation: Warehouse service manager
Jack is a Southeast Asian man in his late thirties who works as a warehouse service manager at a small warehouse in Redlands. Born and raised in San Diego, he resides in Redlands with his two sisters and girlfriend.

Jack has worked for his current employer since 2017, starting as a team lead at $19/hour. He has worked in the lowest-tier warehouse positions and spent 10 years in fulfillment at Home Depot, along with working service-sector jobs in his teen years.

At his current position, Jack is salaried and makes $120,000–$150,000 per year. The warehouse operator is a multinational firm headquartered in London with thousands of warehouses across the globe. Jack’s workplace has about 15 employees, who, he says, are treated fairly and have access to a variety of benefits. Jack said he is mindful of how laborious warehouse work can be, so he tries to be accommodating. He said his company hires only full-time workers and they receive the same health care package he does.

Jack said that his company tends to give in-house workers priority for promotions instead of hiring from outside for higher positions. Reflecting on perceptions of the warehouse industry, Jack said, “Pretty soon it’ll be like every other person’s gonna have worked at Amazon at some point in their life. … I heard there’s some ambulance outside that they keep, you know, just to work people until the point of exhaustion … and then I think [Amazon and other warehouses] don’t have roles for people to grow into. They’ll take them, use them until they don’t need them anymore. ... [At] a company such as ours there’s a lot of roles they could step into after.”

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32 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
Although the State of California currently offers small truck fleets subsidies to alleviate the costs of purchasing electric trucks, they do not cover the full amount, and most incentive programs require a large amount of
upfront capital because they are reimbursement-based.

Many operators withdraw from applying to subsidies
due to the extensive documentation required (Flaming
and Burns 2023). Paperwork for incentive programs
is perceived to be difficult and burdensome. Even with
incentives, “You need competitive pricing to bring those trucks to a reasonable price,” says Karamjit. Several
owner-operators mention that repairs will also be out of the orbit of most mechanics, “it would be like me trying to fix the computer… I can only imagine the cost to fix a mechanical failure” (Carlos).

Some who own and operate only a few trucks are
angry about the changing regulations, and believe
that independent owners are being priced out of the
industry. Drivers mentioned that government subsidies
that encourage truck electrification focus on the initial transition or purchase of vehicles rather than the
long-term maintenance costs, such as battery replacements. While new trucks tend to be more expensive to purchase, older trucks tend to require more costs
to maintain them. Yet many truck drivers, like Carlos,
believe that a well-maintained truck is better for the
environment than scrapping it for a new vehicle. He
wishes agencies were better at communicating new
regulations, too, and that they went through the DMV to reach truck drivers directly, instead of at the moment
when you are told you are out of compliance.

Most truck drivers point to the huge burdens ahead in
regards to “the charging situation.” As it is, “people
can’t even find a parking spot at truck stops. They’re
parking on the side of roads, they’re parking on the
shoulders of exits, they’re parking at rest areas. I
don’t feel like there are enough places to be able to
give everybody an EV charger at the end of the night”
(Simranjit). Varinder wonders, “Where are they going to get the electricity to power all these batteries? I mean, they can’t even sustain AC during the summer months
out here in California…. The state doesn’t have any sort of infrastructure set up to support electric charging.” While some long-haul drivers only see EVs working
for local use since that would take less charging time, short-haul drivers don’t believe electrification of their trucks will make a difference to air quality.

Several owner-operators grouse that regulatory agencies such as CARB are “putting fines and regulations and all this stuff on the trucking industry, and they need to provide information about it in advance” through
people, not just the Internet (Carlos). Others worry
about privatization, and that the government needs to
step in more. “I believe the government should come
in and help truckers with concerns like getting better
pay, good health care plans for truckers, and also on
the safety and maintenance, where the government
can provide us better programs to help individuals and
self-employeds” (Prabh).

The zero-emissions transition within logistics has
important implications for workforce development.

The state and region must prepare workers, including
workers that could be displaced through this transition, to enter into new green jobs created by it and help to
ensure good labor standards within those jobs. Such
new jobs include those related to developing and maintaining new charging stations; electric grid construction and maintenance; the manufacture, sale, operation,
and repair of zero-emissions vehicles, including electric delivery trucks; the production and sale of lithium batteries; and the installation and repair of solar rooftop panels on warehouses (Economic Policy Institute 2021;
Phadke et al. 2021). Recommendations for preparing for
these changes in workforce needs are discussed on p. 39.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
The current landscape of workforce development in the
TDL sector in the IE should be considered in light of
what federal and state labor agencies regard as lowskill versus middle-skill jobs. These broad categories are roughly tied to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (2023) education and training classification system,
which considers the typical education needed for entry
to an occupation, the commonly required work experience, and the typical on-the-job training needed to obtain competency in the occupation. The Inland Empire
Regional Planning Unit of California’s Employment
Development Department (2024) lists only heavy and
tractor-trailer truck drivers and order clerks among
the region’s top 20 in-demand middle-skill TDL sector
occupations for 2020 through 2030. The most common
TDL sector occupations, discussed in the quantitative
findings of this report, are regarded as low skill.

In a 2019 workforce needs assessment for the goods
movement sector that was conducted for the Port of Los
Angeles, researchers found that across 38 occupations,
47% of employers required short-term on-the-job
training, 45% required moderate on-the-job training,
and 8% did not require any training at all. About 65% of employers also required workers to have a high school
diploma. The needs assessment found a shortage of

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 33
community-based workforce training programs in the
sector, especially for “higher-skilled” occupations (ICF Incorporated, LLC 2019: 3).

As our research findings and the Port of Los Angeles
needs assessment show, a lack of workforce development plagues the TDL sector in the IE. Entry-level workers are too often seen as cheap, disposable labor
to fulfill menial tasks, not whole people whose development as workers is worth investing in. In this section we look at several approaches to workforce development in
low- and middle-skill occupations. We then examine the
outlook for workforce development with the changes the
sector is undergoing.

Case Studies: “Low-Skill” Jobs
Young Visionaries
Young Visionaries collaborates with Community Action
Partnership (CAP) in San Bernardino to provide community members with free forklift training and, once finalized, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certification. The training program occurs once
a month, from Monday through Thursday during a
single week. The first two days are spent on orientation, obtaining materials, and filing documentation, with
the last two days focused on having participants obtain hands-on experience by managing forklift operations in
CAP’s warehouse facility.

Many San Bernardino residents experience food, housing, and financial insecurity. As a result, many of the participants that undergo the forklift training program are unemployed, men, and over the age of 30. In order
to reduce the barriers to participating, Young Visionaries provides childcare, gas gift cards and bus passes when available, and food during the training days, but
funding limits the availability of these wraparound
services. During the program, participants also have
access to learn about financial literacy through Chase
Bank. Shakoya Henderson, project manager for Young
Visionaries who oversees multiple programs including
the forklift training program, states,
“The ultimate goal for the program, I would say, is to
definitely expand one’s horizon. Land a job hopefully in the field of the forklift. And just a better way of life, a better improvement for oneself.”
While Young Visionaries does not have the capacity to
place workers in occupations, they collaborate closely
with San Bernardino’s Violence Intervention Prevention
program to connect its training graduates to employment opportunities and follow up with them throughout their journeys. The training program helps increase
participants’ chances to be hired as forklift drivers
across temporary, seasonal, and full-time positions. In the future, Young Visionaries hopes to expand their free forklift training program to residents in the High Desert, including in Victorville and Hesperia.6
Teamsters 1932 Training Center
The Teamsters 1932 Training Center, based in San
Bernardino, offers a warehouse and distribution program whose aim is to create a pipeline for workers to access union jobs in logistics. It is based on the needs of unionized companies to recruit and retain employees, and it provides workers interested in this industry with the skills they need for a long-term career with opportunities for advancement. In these ways, the training program challenges the stereotype of jobs in the TDL
sector as only being “dead-end jobs.”
The warehouse and distribution training program
piloted in 2023 as a four-week course for six hours per week, free of charge, and taught by a rank-and-file
Teamsters warehouse worker. Participants have ranged
in age from high school seniors to workers in their
forties. Both men and women are included, and the
participants are racially and ethnically diverse. In 2024, the program is set to transition to six hours per week
and include forklift and OSHA 10 training (an industry-recognized health and safety certification).

In addition to occupation-specific skills, training participants receive job preparedness training, resume feedback, and one-on-one job placement support. Participants also learn about environmental justice issues associated with the TDL sector and about the importance of a union contract and how it improves workers’ access to employment benefits. The program’s instructor, Fredy Campos, shared that he felt fortunate to have learned about his union warehouse job only because
he worked at a non-union facility across the street and would encounter the union workers at the corner store.

He wants to introduce people to union possibilities in an inclusive environment, he said, explaining, “Given the
way my life has shaped out, I want that for everybody. … I don’t want it to seem like [union jobs] are hoarded.”7

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34 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
Case Studies: “Middle-Skill” Jobs
Transportation and Advanced Technology Center,
Pacific High School
In early 2023, Pacific High School in San Bernardino
unveiled a Transportation and Advanced Technology
Center. The center is the first public school facility of its kind in California, according to district officials, and serves students that are interested in assorted mechanical and electrical training. At more than 20,000 square feet, the facility is equipped like a professional auto shop with the capacity to work on heavy-duty vehicles
(Whitehead 2023).

Through a partnership with San Bernardino Valley College, students in the course associated with this facility learn the intricacies of heavy- and-medium-duty trucks, while some are simultaneously enrolled in an afterschool college-level course. Course professor Mike Stayon spoke to the value of the course for students
who are more trade-oriented:
“I’m a trade school guy,” Stayton said. “When I graduated high school, I didn’t want to go to college, just like some of these kids here. Some will go to college, but a lot of them are not interested right now. They want to get done with school and go to work or a trade school, like when I was a kid” (cited in Whitehead 2023).

Since opening, the facility has garnered enough interest to justify hiring another teacher for the course.

Amazon Logistics Pathway, Cajon High School
Another career pathway program related to logistics
has been developed at Cajon High School in San
Bernardino. In 2019, Cajon High received $50,000
from Amazon to develop a curriculum to prepare and
motivate students for managerial careers in logistics.

The Amazon Logistics and Business Management
Pathway program emerged through a collaboration with
educators at Cajon High, California State University San Bernardino, and Chaffey College. Students who enroll in the curriculum are provided with college credit at both institutions. As of 2022, there were 96 students enrolled, including 64 students in 10th grade.

The curriculum teaches students about Amazon’s
impacts on global supply chains and e-commerce
and includes classes that focus on working with labor
unions, ethical decision making, and maintaining
motivated employees. Students are required to work in
teams to develop managerial methods for maintaining
skilled employees’ motivation without offering higher
salaries and bonuses. Although Amazon is very well
known for engaging in union-busting across the nation,
students in this program were trained in collective
bargaining. The program also requires students to
participate in an internship at Amazon facilities or
other nearby logistics companies. The program has
been criticized for its seemingly purposeful promotion
of Amazon corporate propaganda (Gordon and Gurley
2022).

While the Cajon High program and others like it may
prepare some students for management positions in the
TDL sector, it is not clear how they will benefit the vast majority of workers, who are employed in blue-collar
occupations. Union representation and collective bargaining remains critical to maintaining and improving the labor standards within the industry (AFL-CIO 2019).

InTech Center, Chaffey College
Since 2019, the InTech Center at Chaffey College in
Fontana has received more than $3 million in grants
for its advanced manufacturing training programs,
which include a three-month pre-apprenticeship in
automation, robotics, and mechatronics (ARM). The
ARM program is designed to train students for careers
as mid-level technicians in automated warehouse
equipment, such as robotic and automated conveyor
belt systems. InTech staff advertise an average starting wage of $25 per hour in this field (Scauzillo 2022).

Workforce Development Outlooks
The cornerstone of workforce development in the TDL
sector must be individual and community development.

TDL sector workers must be viewed with dignity regardless of wage or “skill” level and have the opportunity to develop as whole people with the right to grow and
thrive. The COVID pandemic shutdown sharply illustrated that frontline TDL sector workers do essential work in a consumer economy.

As discussed in the “Automation” section above,
automation presents an opportunity for workers to be
upskilled rather than deskilled. On the warehouse floor and on the road, workers can supervise and maintain
automated technologies. In the office, workers can use
data analytics for advanced problem-solving. Regardless of role, all workers can benefit from honing skills in critical thinking, communication and interpersonal
interactions, adaptability and resilience, and collaboPage 44 of 76

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 35
ration and teamwork (O’Brien et al. 2020). Fostering
“uniquely human qualities” is a key way to ensure work
remains meaningful for humans (Muro et al. 2019: 55).

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2022)
recommends preparing workers for the impacts of
automation by training them in work skills that will be in high demand to ensure workers have sustainable
employment, addressing the psychological impacts
of losing their previous jobs, and providing them with
employer-recognized credentials, thereby developing
career pathways that can lead to increased wages.

Multiple studies on the impact of automation for TDL
sector workers recommend planning and preparing
for change through partnerships between employers,
training providers, and worker leaders (ICF Incorporated, LLC 2019: 42–43; U.S. GAO 2022: 29). Training can take various forms, including hands-on training, paid
internships, mentorship, summer employment, career
exploration programs, and contract training (O’Brien
et al. 2020: 27). Stakeholders can promote active
learning by investing in reskilling workers, developing accelerated training programs and certifications, and
providing on-the-job training or tuition reimbursement
(Muro et al. 2019: 52). Insufficient funding and a lack of qualified instructors, training providers, and equipment are identified as obstacles to meeting these training and educational needs (O’Brien et al. 2020: 28).

One study examining the potential impact of automation on workers urges federal, state, local, business and civic organizations to work together to ensure
technological advancements are not only maintaining
high productivity, but also supporting workers’ living
standards (Muro et al. 2019: 48). Similarly, Viscelli
(2018) suggests that statewide trucking innovation and
jobs councils should be created in order to ensure that training, career counseling, and financial assistance is provided to workers, particularly truck drivers, facing displacement through technological innovations.

The implementation and enforcement of what Muro et
al. (2019) call a Universal Adjustment Benefit—encompassing career counseling, retraining opportunities, and income support—across industries can assist
workers who experience displacement to reduce the
barriers to enter the workforce again. Along the same
lines, stakeholders can provide displaced or struggling workers access to government benefits such as the
Earned Income Tax Credit and expanded unemployment
benefits. Lastly, when automation is implemented,
stakeholders should invest in reducing the impact of
new technologies by supporting communities to develop
in-demand skills for new occupations and invest in
impacted communities to develop regional growth
(Muro et al. 2019: 57–67).8
The following section outlines broader, more holistic
ways to pursue the workforce development recommendations summarized here.

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE:

WORKER WELL-BEING AS COMMUNITY

WELL-BEING
Residents and policymakers hold a spectrum of views
on the proliferation of warehouses in the Inland Empire.

Although the most polarized perspectives receive the
most publicity, many residents have measured opinions.

They might resent the truck traffic and pollution, for
example, but concede that warehouse work is what
enables them to support their family. As one San
Bernardino resident told the New York Times, “It’s taken away the neighborhood feel. Kids don’t play outside. No one is in their yards. … [But] if you want jobs, they’re out here in the warehouses, and that’s a fact” (Lee 2022).

This section focuses on collective, bottom-up interventions in logistics development that begin with that middle ground. But, rather than simply responding to
the sector’s dominance in the IE, these interventions
assert holistic, people-centered visions in which worker well-being is community well-being: Residents can
have great jobs that pay enough to support a family,
prioritize their health and safety in a pandemic, and
let them retire without worry. Residents can also have
secure housing, clean air, outdoor spaces for recreation, and time to devote to their communities. Most of all,
as residents, legislation, and investors press logistics developers and operators to transform their operations
for people and the planet, stakeholders can and must
collaborate to ensure that no workers are left behind.

Below we review some ways that residents, policymakers, and logistics developers have worked to calibrate what outcomes the TDL sector has for residents who
have felt the greatest negative impacts of its dominance in the IE economy. Subsequently, we outline models of
action in which visions of worker well-being and community well-being become reality because residents come together to demand them and policymakers rise
to the challenge of meeting those demands.

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36 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire

COMMUNITY ACTION AND CONSTRAINING

FACTORS
Until recent years, IE policymakers rarely held developers accountable for mitigating the adverse effects of logistics development upon residents. Elected officials and developers neglected to be proactive about seeking
resident input. New developments slipped by, buried in
planning commission meeting agendas.

The environmental review process that developers must
go through when seeking to build new facilities has
been the main opportunity for residents to participate in decision-making. Participation, however, is constrained by the realities of the process. Developers hire their
own environmental consultants to influence decisions
with zoning changes, general plan amendments, and
project approvals. These third-party consultants have
no accountability to local residents and tend to minimize the public health risks that warehouses present. The
consultants often produce environmental reports that
are hundreds of pages long just days before a city is set to vote on a project (De Lara 2018; Emmons Allison and
Reese 2023; Muñoz et al. 2023).

Campaign contributions are a driving force for elected
officials favoring developers’ voices over those of residents (Muñoz et al. 2023: 31–33). Thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions from developers and
individuals who list an employer within the TDL sector
can be found in the campaign finance reports of elected officials in jurisdictions with dense warehouse development.

In addition, cities may provide tax breaks to attract
employers. For fiscal years 2018 through 2022, for
example, the City of Rialto reported a 20-year tax abatement agreement of 50% with an unnamed distribution center for constructing the facility and establishing its point of sale there. The total amount of taxes abated
over the five fiscal years was $14,380,066 (City of Rialto 2018: 97; City of Rialto 2019: 94; City of Rialto 2020:
93; City of Rialto 2021: 89; City of Rialto 2022: 100).

Aside from local funding, the State of California has
granted tax credits of more than $26,000,000 to three
distribution and fulfillment center projects potentially to be located in San Bernardino or Riverside counties.

These credits have been awarded through the California
Competes program since 2014 (California GO-Biz 2024).

As residents and some elected officials have grown
weary of warehouse development, a variety of groups
and city councils have mobilized to keep it in check.

Their efforts have mostly focused on environmental and
health impacts, however, while leaving out the longterm working conditions that warehouses tend to bring.

In south Fontana, for example, where warehouses
occupy more than 16 million square feet, a group of
residents called the South Fontana Concerned Citizens
Coalition formally appealed the city planning commission’s approval of a warehouse proposed by Duke Realty in 2021. The planned warehouse of approximately
205,000 square feet at Slover and Oleander avenues was
set to abut one high school and sit within less than one mile of another. The city denied the residents’ appeal
(City of Fontana 2021: 349–57).

Subsequently, California Attorney General Rob Bonta
filed a lawsuit against the city for violating the California Environmental Quality Act. In response, the City of Fontana revised its municipal code to incorporate “sustainability standards” for new industrial developments. The new regulations included building landscape buffers,
the development and enforcement of truck routes to
prevent trucks from driving in residential neighborhoods, the use of zero-emission vehicles, solar panel installation, and the use of environmentally friendly
construction materials (City of Fontana 2022). The city and the Attorney General thereafter reached a settlement that also involved Duke Realty creating a $210,000 “community benefit fund” for specific forms of environmental impact mitigation (Office of the Attorney General 2022). Since the scope of the lawsuit and settlement
were limited to direct environmental impacts, there
were no long-term labor provisions.

Developers have begun to preempt residents’ concerns
with “voluntary” community benefit payouts. One recent
example can be found in documents that Howard
Industrial Partners (HIP), a developer based in Orange
County, submitted to the City of Rialto upon seeking
approval to develop a 470,000-square-foot warehouse
in 2023. HIP proposed donations of $5 million to fund a Rialto charter high school focused on entrepreneurship, $1 million to the National Latina Business Women
Association Inland Empire Institute to support women
of color entrepreneurs and small businesses, and $5
million to the city’s police department to train officers on commercial enforcement policies and construct a
new police station. HIP also agreed to fund infrastructural improvements in the city. The developer’s labor offerings were limited to three construction project
labor agreements and one job fair—no provisions for
long-term labor standards (City of Rialto 2023).

The exclusion of long-term labor provisions as a key
community benefit can be explained in some part by the

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 37
fact that warehouse developers tend to gain support
from unions in the building trades, who view the construction of new warehouse projects as job security for their members. At a January 2024 hearing for a warehouse in unincorporated San Bernardino County, one county supervisor lamented that development approval
votes always came down to a choice between jobs and
the environment. Nonetheless, he said, addressing the
“orange shirts” (worn by construction union members)
in the audience, he would side with workers (San
Bernardino County 2024).

The county supervisor skirted the real issue: Why do
the region’s elected representatives not reshape the
circumstances so that workers never have to choose
between a job and clean air?

COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENTS
Inland Empire residents and organizations have worked
hard to counter the false opposition of “jobs versus the environment.” Perhaps the largest coordinated effort
toward this to date has been the San Bernardino Airport Communities (SBAC) 2019–2020 Eastgate community
benefits agreement campaign. The campaign centered
on the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center at the San
Bernardino Airport. The developer, Hillwood Properties, was set to sign a 35-year lease with an unnamed tenant
suspected to be Amazon. The project’s aviation aspect
meant that the impact would be much larger than
usual, involving residents living all along the airport’s flight path, and that it would require federal approval.

SBAC brought together unions and environmental and
social justice organizations in a shared effort to impose labor standards, enable local access to high-quality
logistics jobs, and take specific steps toward emissions mitigation and public health. Despite a concerted
campaign involving community meetings, door-to-door
canvassing, and the collection of about 600 pledge
cards from residents, Hillwood and allied policymakers
bulldozed through the approval process for the Eastgate project, which eventually became the Amazon Air regional hub (Emmons Allison and Reese 2023: 212–16).

SBAC pushed for a community benefits agreement
(CBA) because it is a legally binding contract that
originates with the needs of low-income residents who
will be most directly impacted by a development. CBAs
are designed through negotiation between developers,
community organizations, and labor organizations to
address residents’ concerns, allow community members to be engaged in decision-making processes, hold developers accountable, and contribute to the development of sustainable projects (PowerSwitch Action 2024).

Although agreements to share the benefits of private
land development have existed in the US for over a century (Rosen 2023: 178), the specific form of CBAs was a response to the presumption that development processes are “shaped by powerful corporate actors who use their influence to gain city subsidies and help in
the entitlement process to support their interests while working against those of others,” namely stakeholders
with the fewest resources to shape development outcomes (Saito 2012: 130).

As discussed above, municipalities might use tax breaks as an incentive for desired development projects under
the premise of job creation and economic development.

However, low-wage workers often have little power
to ensure that the long-term jobs that will be created
as a result of proposed developments will pay well,
will meet the job quality standards discussed earlier
in this report, and will not displace them. At the same time, developers often face complex bureaucracy and
extensive public review processes before they can break ground. The CBA model addresses both of these circumstances.

In one of the earliest and most well-studied CBA cases, the 2001 LA Live CBA, a large community coalition facilitated the environmental review and permitting process for a downtown Los Angeles development that includes
what is now the Crypto.com Arena and the housing and
entertainment complex surrounding it. In this case,
the coalition was able to gain leverage for city council support by citing the millions of dollars in subsidies
that the city offered to the developer. The CBA’s key
workforce provision was for the developer to contribute $82,000 to local hiring and job training programs and
to collaborate with community groups to fulfill the local hiring requirements. Most notably, the jobs in question were permanent, so-called low-skill jobs, not only
project construction jobs (Saito 2012: 142–43).

In the TDL sector, a landmark CBA is the Port of Oakland Good Jobs Policy. The policy was enacted in 2012 and expanded in 2017 after negotiations between the
City of Oakland; Revive Oakland, a coalition of community and labor organizations; and logistics developers at the former Oakland Army Base. It established the
West Oakland Job Resource Center, which offers TDL
pre-apprenticeship and truck driver (commercial
driver’s license) apprenticeship programs. Located in
an area with 44 percent unemployment at the time of
the agreement, the job center acts as the first source of

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38 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
hire for the port warehouse complex (González-Vásquez
and López 2021: 35). Oakland’s Good Jobs Policy also
provided for living wages, limits on temp workers, preference for workers from disadvantaged zip codes, and a “ban the box” policy (Baldassari 2017; PowerSwitch
Action 2024).

Just San Bernardino, a coalition of eight community
organizations that work in the city of San Bernardino,
has a toolkit on CBA campaigns that is tailored to the
area. The main points of the toolkit are as follows:

1. Unite the coalition: Ensure each party is represented and there are clear channels of communication.

2. Identify the development project: This requires
proactively following news about upcoming local
decisions regarding land use.

3. Research, research, research: Learn the details of
the developer, the development plan, and the plan’s
projected impacts for local residents.

4. Engage the neighborhood: Speak with neighbors
by going door-to-door, holding in-person meetings,
and being creative about other kinds of events
that will draw people in. Hire local artists to create
engaging materials.

5. Identify community priorities: Use a democratic
voting process among stakeholders.

6. Draft the CBA outline: Work with an attorney to
translate community priorities into contractual
language.

7. Educate decision makers: Draw on existing relationships and researchers to decide on city council members and other decision makers to engage.

8. Approach the developer: Highlight the scope of your
support based on the results of the previous steps.

9. Negotiate: Ideally, seek an attorney for this process, and maintain a united front.

10. Use city processes and media to your advantage: Be
familiar with every aspect of the local jurisdiction’s
approval process. Use the timeline the developer
must work with to create deadlines in the negotiation process.

11. Sign the CBA: As the coalition and the developer
reach an agreement, the coalition should be ready
to show its support of the project based on the
agreed-upon benefits.

12. Implement, monitor, and enforce: The coalition
should keep track of whether the developer is holding up its end of the bargain (Just San Bernardino 2023: 11-38).

As with any toolkit, we recommend reading and discussing the Just SB resource with potential partners to design an overall strategy that takes into account
the characteristics of specific cities or neighborhoods within the Inland Empire. Coalitions should also be
aware that specific economic and political conditions in an area can be critical to their success. These include the strength of existing relationships between labor and community organizations (Saito 2022).

THE HIGH ROAD MODEL OF WORKFORCE

DEVELOPMENT
Equity, climate resilience, and job quality: These were the three core principles that the California Workforce Development Board emphasized when it rolled out its
High Road Training Partnership (HRTP) initiative in
2017. Drawing on a model that revitalized manufacturing in Wisconsin beginning in the 1990s, California’s initial HRTP projects tested the success of workforce
development that was designed through partnerships
of employers, workers, and labor representatives;
driven by industry needs; and guided by the expertise
of workers themselves (González-Vásquez and López
2021: 13–16).

The West Oakland Job Resource Center (WOJRC) was
one of the HRTP demonstration projects funded in 2017.

As mentioned in the previous section, WOJRC runs a
pre-apprenticeship program in TDL and a truck driver
(commercial driver’s license, or CDL) apprenticeship.

The TDL pre-apprenticeship combines occupational
skills, such as OSHA 10 (an industry-recognized health
and safety certification) and forklift training, with life skills such as computer literacy, financial literacy, and mental health awareness. Since WOJRC serves an area
burdened by disinvestment, it offers individual case
management for participants who may need a range
of basic needs met: housing, transportation, legal
services, and one-on-one financial counseling, among
others.

When participants complete the TDL pre-apprenticeship, they may seek employment at logistics facilities at the Port of Oakland, which must fulfill local hiring mandates that are enforced by the city’s Good Jobs
Policy committee (described above). If they choose to
pursue a CDL apprenticeship, they receive points toward

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 39
an application with the Northern California Teamsters
Apprentice Training and Education Trust Fund or can
enroll at a private, employee-owned CDL school. In both cases, the apprenticeship has no cost for the trainee.

Both the pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship are
linked to equipment electrification efforts at the Port of Oakland.9
As the WOJRC example illustrates, the HRTP model is
notable because it accommodates for job quality, skill
building, and worker power in occupations that are
commonly regarded as low-skill. Another highly successful HRTP that leaves no worker behind is Building Skills Partnership (BSP), which operates in multiple
locations in California. Originating with the Justice for Janitors labor movement of the 1990s, BSP trains and
empowers property service workers—janitors; security
officers; maintenance and custodial workers; and stadium, arena and airport workers. Its programs include “green janitor” education to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, infectious disease certification, ESL for the workplace, and digital literacy. BSP operates these programs through a partnership between the SEIU
United Service Workers West union, janitorial service
companies, building owners, and community organizations (Building Skills Partnership 2023).

Both WOJRC and BSP show what can be achieved
when people come together around their collective
interests in fulfilling, dignified work as a cornerstone of community well-being. Both of their successes can
be attributed to having arisen out of diverse coalitions or movements and having at least some aspects of
their operations formalized through legally enforceable agreements and labor-management partnerships that
give workers and employers equal seats at the table.

PUBLIC FUNDING
Policymakers can play their part in working toward a
vision of worker well-being as community well-being
by anchoring logistics development and environmental
impact mitigation to labor standards.

To address emissions from the TDL sector, environmental justice organizations have fought for specific policies and programs that temper the ways in which
warehousing and trucking alter local ecosystems and
quality of life. Air quality improvements, especially the use of zero-emissions vehicles and equipment, receive
the most attention because they have the most immediate impact. There are many other recommended steps, however. These include building or retrofitting existing facilities for energy efficiency, such as by installing rooftop solar panels; planting trees; creating site designs that have minimal impact on groundwater recharge;
and not building in areas that are endangered species
habitats.

In the coming years, IE workers will be needed to do
this work and help meet California’s goals to achieve
carbon neutrality (Governor’s Executive Order B-55-18), draw energy from 100% zero-carbon sources (Senate
Bill 100, 2018), and convert all medium- and heavy-duty vehicle operations to 100% zero emissions (Governor’s
Executive Order N-79-20)—all by 2045. The federal and
state funding that will make these goals possible makes provisions for encouraging contractors to plan projects in accordance with community needs.

Federal Funding
Current federal funding that addresses climate adaptation and mitigation in the TDL sector falls mostly under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also
known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; 2021) and
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, 2022). As one example of
how workers, contractors, and workers’ communities
can all benefit, any project proposals that the Department of Energy considers under the IIJA and IRA, must include community benefits plans. Such plans can be
developed with little to no consultation with workers
and nearby residents. But a solid community benefits
agreement that includes community groups as signatories is likely to make a proposal stronger (Department of Energy, n.d.).

State Funding
On top of federal provisions, California Senate Bill 150 (2023) adds workforce standards to IIJA and IRA projects granted to California state agencies and subcontracted to private contractors. The standards to be imposed are still under deliberation as of this writing, but preliminary hearings indicate that they will draw
substantially on the U.S. Employment Plan designed
by Jobs to Move America (2020; California Government
Operations Agency et al. 2024).

California state funding for zero-emissions transportation and charging infrastructure comes with its own workforce mandates and programs. For any charging
infrastructure project funded in whole or in part by the state’s Air Resources Board, Energy Commission, or
Public Utilities Commission, Assembly Bill 841 (2020)

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40 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
requires that “at least 25 percent of the total electricians working on the crew for the project, at any given time,” hold the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP) certification. The EVITP course was
co-designed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to meet high safety standards, and the union offers the course through its electrical training centers. Regardless, any certified electrician can
become EVITP certified (Goodheart 2022).

Although union standards apply at least in part to many projects that involve installing EV chargers, there are no legislative provisions for the long-term job of EV
charger maintenance. With passenger EVs, charger
reliability has proved to be a serious problem. Common
issues range from unresponsive screens, to problems
connecting to the payment system, to failures in
interoperability between a vehicle’s charging technology and the charger itself (St. John 2023).

Resolving EV charger issues does not require thousands
of hours of specialized electrical training, so, unlike charger installation, the emerging occupation of EV
charger technicians has so far been excluded from
unionization and the high labor standards that union
contracts are able to secure. In addition, charger technician jobs so far tend to be on-call rather than on-site (Muller 2022), so as these jobs grow, they may not
benefit local workers. As public electric truck charging stations begin to roll out, this is a workforce issue that public funding agencies must consider. The memorandum of agreement signed by the state Energy Commission and Workforce Development Board in January 2024 is a promising step.

Regional Incentives
The South Coast Air Quality Management District
(SCAQMD)’s Indirect Source Rule, described on p. 5, has been implemented through a program called Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions (WAIRE). The Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario metro
area falls under SCAQMD’s jurisdiction.

The WAIRE program takes a carrot-or-stick approach.

Warehouse operators can either pay an emissions mitigation fee, or they can earn “WAIRE points” by taking concrete steps to decrease their emissions. SCAQMD
offers a “menu” of options for earning WAIRE points, or a warehouse operator can submit a custom WAIRE plan
for consideration (South Coast Air Quality Management
District 2024).

We recommend that SCAQMD consider custom WAIRE
plans that follow the community benefits agreement
model and visions. Custom WAIRE plans could be
developed in collaboration with local community organizations, who are signatory to the plans. Plans could include partnerships with local organizations to provide worker training and preferential hiring to residents from Senate Bill 535 “disadvantaged communities” within
a 20-mile radius of the warehouse. Such partnerships
could include zero-emissions shuttles to ensure that
workers have reliable transportation to get to work.

Warehouse management could participate in environmental justice trainings. Warehouse operators could establish startup funds for local minority and disadvantaged entrepreneurs with limited access to large, low-interest loans to establish businesses centered on
climate mitigation and adaptation.

BROADER POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
In addition to the recommendations discussed earlier
in this section, we see larger policy opportunities for improving worker and community welfare. Broader policy changes within the region could address warehouse development from the perspective of land use and local
economic development. Statewide policy changes could
improve and enhance labor standards within the industry.

Regional Policy
Restrict changes to zoning and land use. County and
city policymakers must make it a priority to protect
diverse land uses by placing restrictions on changes
to how land is zoned. In 2022, zoning changes were
approved for the South Ontario Logistics Center development on former protected agricultural lands because the protections were not written permanently into law
(Kaneko 2022). Also in 2022, the Bloomington Business
Park development pushed through a deal to displace
a local elementary school so the developer would
not have to address public health concerns that the
warehouse raised for the school district (Linden 2022).

Bloomington Business Park was also set to displace
the residents of 100 homes (Noroozi and Story 2022). As Ricardo Cisneros, principal officer of the Inland Empire Labor Council, AFL-CIO, notes, debates that pit workers against residents and environmental justice organizations can be preempted simply by making it prohibitive to rezone non-industrial land.10

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 41
Diversify the Inland Empire’s economy. The reason
that warehouse developments continue to be pushed
through in the name of jobs to begin with is because
economic development strategists and boosters have
fostered a regional dependency on warehouse construction and operations. In reality, no worker should have to celebrate a drastic alteration to their local environment for a job that does not provide the compensation or
security needed to raise a family.

San Bernardino’s downtown redevelopment project,
made possible by the demolition of Carousel Mall, is
an opportunity to establish employment and entrepreneurship opportunities that keep worker dollars in the community and that build intergenerational wealth for
residents who have been disadvantaged by redlining
and systemic racism. Cisneros says that the downtown
redevelopment project could create 25 years’ worth of
construction work, on top of the long-term opportunities it presents. Other cities in the region could pursue such integrated plans that center the needs of current
residents by embracing density and building upward,
Cisneros suggests.11
Climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience projects focused on buildings and communities, which could
include everything from home weatherization, to community composting, to utility-scale energy generation, should also be looked to as job creators now and for the foreseeable future.

State and National Policy
Drawing inspiration from the sectoral bargaining strategy of fast-food workers and the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) approach to highlighting discrepancies in CEO
compensation, these recommendations aim to promote
fair labor practices and equitable income distribution.

In California’s fast food sector, worker organizing led to a $20 minimum wage (taking effect April 2024) across
the sector and the creation of a Fast Food Council with equal representation of business and labor that will set working conditions in the industry (Kuang 2024). This
sectoral bargaining strategy, adapted from the European labor model, shows one way to raise the bar for the lowest-wage occupations in the TDL sector.

Already, fast food franchise operators have implied
that the planned wage increase will lead them to lay off workers (Kuang 2024), and mass media coverage has
promoted this framing. Yet the UAW’s 2023 campaign
for auto industry workers gives the lie to this argument.

The UAW built worker support for a new contract with
the “Big Three” automakers in 2023 by drawing attention to the fact that workers’ labor was channeled into a 40% increase in CEO pay over the previous four years, while rank-and-file workers saw a pay increase of just
6% (Kaye and Hsu 2023).

In addition, a 2024 analysis of inflation from 2019
through 2023 found that corporate profits drove 53% of
inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023.

In comparison, corporate profits drove 11% of consumer
price increases for the 40 years between 1980 and
2020. While the economy ostensibly recovers from the
pandemic shutdown period, labor’s share of income
has actually declined while corporate profits have risen (Pancotti and Owens 2024). In other words, there is
plenty of room to increase the pay of wage workers and
close the pay gap between wage workers and CEOs, if
business prioritizes the redistribution of corporate profits to communities through worker pay. Hourly workers must not be scapegoated for price increases that can
be directly attributed to the greed of corporations and investors.

Building upon insights from Smith et al. (2014), we
recommend that state and federal labor law enforcement agencies intensify their efforts to investigate and address labor law violations within the TDL industry.

This would include enhanced funding for agencies to
recruit and train staff capable of conducting thorough
investigations.

Workers in the TDL sector in the IE will also benefit
from other state and federal policies that generally
strengthen and expand workers’ rights. Policies that
protect workers against retaliation for organizing and
filing complaints about labor law violations should be
fortified and implemented. The recent Department of
Labor policy on employee misclassification, especially
among drivers, is a step in the right direction. This policy change aligns with the need for more comprehensive worker protections, including new rights for temporary
agency workers, such as those adopted in Illinois and
New Jersey in 2023. A similar legislative push in California, following the model of these new standards, could significantly improve the working conditions for
all temp workers, including those in the TDL sector.

It is important to acknowledge the economic implications of improved labor conditions. As Viscelli (2016) notes, better working conditions and fair wages can
reduce the high turnover rates that currently cost companies billions annually. Therefore, these policy recommendations not only aim to create a more equitable and

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42 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
just working environment for workers but also offer a
pragmatic approach to reducing operational costs for
employers in the long run.

FUTURE RESEARCH AVENUES
Identifying gaps in current research and proposing
future study areas, such as the long-term effects of
automation and electrification on regional economies,
is fundamental. Methodologies for ongoing monitoring
and comparative studies across regions and logistics
sub-sectors should be developed.

Investigating the implications of automation and electrification, understanding occupational shifts and their effects on workers, and exploring the interplay of policy and industry responses are essential. This research
will not only offer insights into the sector’s transformation but also guide the development of strategies that ensure technological advancements are harmoniously
integrated with workforce welfare and industry growth.

We hope that this research we have presented in this
report can serve as a foundation for evidence-based
policy decisions, particularly those impacting workers.

Our goal is for this research to inform policies that
not only respond to current trends but also proactively shape a more equitable and sustainable future for the
logistics industry and its workers.

We recommend the following topics and approaches for
future research about Inland Empire workers:
• Comprehensive surveys of regional warehouse
workers and truck drivers to better understand their
work and employment experiences, with sample
sizes of at least 1,000
• Longitudinal studies tracking regional warehouse
workers and truck drivers through retirement
• Experiences of women and transgender truck
drivers
• Workforce development program participant outcomes, quantitative and qualitative • Auxiliary TDL sector occupations, such as pallet
suppliers, warehouse equipment technicians, and
truck dealership salespersons
• Worker health and safety in the TDL sector,
including how it relates to working under extreme
weather in the IE

CONCLUSION
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics (TDL) sector, a key component of the Inland Empire’s economy. It explores
the sector from multiple perspectives, considering the
interplay between job growth, environmental impacts,
and workers’ experiences.

The significant expansion of the TDL sector in the Inland Empire, particularly in warehousing and transportation, has shaped the employment landscape, offering both
challenges and opportunities. As the largest employing
industry, it contributes substantially to the regional
economy but also raises concerns about environmental
degradation and job quality, especially for blue-collar roles.

A key insight from this report is the nuanced understanding of the TDL sector’s impact on workers, achieved by combining quantitative data with personal
narratives. This approach has provided a comprehensive view of working conditions, wage disparities, job security, and the effects of technological advancements like automation and electrification. The sector’s growth, while providing employment opportunities, has also led
to challenging working conditions.

To address these diverse impacts, the report recommends several policy interventions aimed at improving the TDL sector. These include strengthening labor
standards, raising the minimum wage across the
industry, enhancing labor law enforcement at state and
federal levels, incorporating labor standards in climate policy, and adopting policies against employee misclassification, inspired by recent legislative examples like the temporary agency workers’ bill of rights. These recommendations seek to balance economic growth
with enhanced worker and community well-being.

This report also outlines future research directions,
including comprehensive surveys of warehouse workers
and truck drivers, longitudinal studies, and analyses of workforce development program outcomes. It emphasizes the importance of focusing on the evolving nature of the sector and ensuring that the voices of those most affected remain central to the discussion.

In conclusion, this report advocates for a balanced
approach to address the multifaceted impacts of the
TDL sector. It calls for informed policymaking and strategic planning that not only capitalizes on the sector’s economic potential but also prioritizes the well-being
of workers and the broader community. These insights
aim to guide decision-makers, employers, workers, and
community activists in developing a future for the Inland Empire that is both economically robust and socially
equitable.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 43

ENDNOTES
1 We selected these five warehouse occupations, following the approach of De Lara (2013) and Gutelius and Theodore (2019). 2 Latino workers self-identified as Latino, Hispanic, Central American, or Mexican.
3 We excluded survey participants that did not respond to this question and included self-employed workers. When we redid the analysis excluding self-employed workers (106 respondents), we found that the percentages remained the same.
4 CPS surveys have relatively small sample sizes at the county level which reduce the certainty of these findings.
5 Interview with Teamsters 1932 Training Center staff with Ellen Reese on September 5, 2023.
6 Information about this training was based on a personal interview with Shakoya Henderson by Elvira De La Torre on January 24, 2024. 7 Interview with Fredy Campos by Natalie Carranza and Athena Tan, November 17, 2023. Information on the Teamsters 1932 Training Center is based on an interview with Becky Lepins by Ellen Reese on September 5, 2023.
8 For similar recommendations regarding workforce development for truck drivers, see Section 5 in Viscelli (2018).
9 Information on WOJRC’s programs and partnership with the Northern California Teamsters Apprentice Training and Education Trust Fund (NCTAT) is from a WOJRC site visit by Plug In IE staff on July 27, 2022, and a conversation between WOJRC, NCTAT, and Plug In IE staff on November 16, 2022.
10 Personal interview with Ricardo Cisneros by Athena Tan, January 25, 2024.
11 Personal interview with Ricardo Cisneros by Athena Tan, January 25, 2024.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 45
Guilhem, Matt. 2015. “How the Inland Empire Became Home to Massive Warehouses.” KCRW, August 18. https://www.kcrw.com/news/ articles/how-the-inland-empire-became-home-to-massivewarehouses Gutelius, Beth and Sanjay Pinto. 2023. Pain Points: Data on Work Intensity, Monitoring, and Health at Amazon Warehouses. Chicago:

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Gutelius, Beth and Nik Theodore. 2019. The Future of Warehouse Work:

Technological Change in the U.S. Logistics Industry. UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. https://laborcenter. berkeley.edu/future-of-warehouse-work/
Gutelius, Beth and Nik Theodore. 2023. Pandemic-Related Trends in Warehouse Technology Adoption. UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/ pandemic-related-trends-in-warehouse-technology-adoption/ Hirsch, Barry, David Macpherson, and William Even (2024). Union Membership, Coverage, and Earnings from the CPS. http://www. unionstats.com/
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27. https://www.pressenterprise.com/2023/02/27/how-many-inlandempire-warehouses-are-locally-owned-does-it-matter/ Horseman, Jeff. 2024. “These 10 Communities Have the Most Warehouses in the Inland Empire.” Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA), February 12. https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/02/12/these-10-
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Jamieson, Dave. 2023. “Amazon Spent $14 Million on Anti-Union Consultants in 2022.” HuffPost, March 31. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ amazon-anti-union-spending-2022_n_6426fd1fe4b02a8d518e7010 Jobs to Move America. 2020. “U.S. Employment Plan.” Resources, April

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A Local Framework for Community Benefit Agreements in the San Bernardino Valley. https://issuu.com/justsb/docs/just_sb_toolkit_v1 Kaneko, Ann. 2022. “Warehouses Pave Over Historic Dairy Lands in Ontario and Chino.” PBS SoCal, May 2. https://www.pbssocal.org/ shows/earth-focus/warehouses-pave-over-historic-dairy-lands-inontario-and-chino Kaye, Danielle and Andrea Hsu. 2023. “Sky-High CEO Pay Is in Focus as Workers Everywhere Are Demanding Higher Wages.” NPR, September 14. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1198938942/highceo-pay-inequality-labor-union-uaw-workers Kuang, Jeanne. 2024. “California Gave Fast Food Workers a Seat at the Table. What Comes Next?” CalMatters, January 29.
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Leon, Luis Feliz. 2023. “Wage Gains at UPS Have Amazon Workers Demanding More.” Labor Notes, August 3. https://labornotes. org/2023/08/wage-gains-ups-have-amazon-workers-demandingmore Linden, Jonathan. 2022. “Future of Bloomington Elementary School Depends on Approval of Warehouse Project.” KVCR, July 22. https://www.kvcrnews.org/local-news/2022-07-22/future-ofbloomington-elementary-school-depends-on-approval-ofwarehouse-project Muller, Joann. 2022. “Hot Job of the Future: Fixing Electric Car Chargers.” Axios, October 27. https://www.axios.com/2022/10/27/ev-electriccar-charger-mechanics-technicians Muñoz, Amparo, Susan Phillips, and Mary A. Ruiz. 2023. “A Region in Crisis: The Rationale for a Public Health State of Emergency in the Inland Empire.” Working paper, CCAEJ, Sierra Club San Gorgonio, and Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability. https://www.ccaej.org/regionincrisis Muro, Mark, Robert Maxim, and Jacob Whiton. 2019. Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How Machines are Affecting People and Places.

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Noroozi, Arayana and Prince J. Story. 2022. “San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Unanimously Approves Bloomington Warehouse Project.” IE Voice, December 13. https://theievoice.com/ san-bernardino-county-board-of-supervisors-unanimouslyapproves-bloomington-warehouse-project/ O’Brien, Tom, Deanna Matsumoto, Diana Sanchez, Caitlin Mace, Elizabeth Warren, Eleni Hala, and Tyler Reeb. 2020. Southern California Regional Workforce Development Needs Assessment for the Transportation and Supply Chain Industry Sectors. San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute. https://transweb.sjsu.edu/ research/1921-Workforce-Development-Needs-AssessmentTransportation-Supply-Chain Office of the Attorney General (California). 2022. “Attorney General Bonta Announces Innovative Settlement with City of Fontana to Address Environmental Injustices in Warehouse Development.” Press release, April 18. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/ attorney-general-bonta-announces-innovative-settlement-cityfontana-address Page, Paul and Soma Biswas. 2023. “Trucker Yellow Files for Bankruptcy, Will Liquidate.” WSJ.com, August 7. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ trucker-yellow-files-for-bankruptcy-will-liquidate-aced4aa6 Pancotti, Liz and Lindsay Owens. 2024. “Inflation Revelation: How Outsized Corporate Profits Drive Rising Costs.” Groundwork Collaborative. https://groundworkcollaborative.org/wp-content/ uploads/2024/01/24.01.17-GWC-Corporate-Profits-Report.pdf Phadke, Amoi, Nikit Abhyankar, Jessica Kersey, Taylor McNair, Umed Paliwal, David Wooley, Olivia Ashmoore, Robbie Orvis, Michael O’Boyle, Ric O’Connell, Utkarsha Agwan, Prihanka Mohanty, Priya Sreedharan, Deepak Rajagopal. 2021. 2035: The Report. Transportation (2035 2.0). University of California Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. https://www.2035report.com/transportation/ PowerSwitch Action. 2024. “Community Benefits Agreements.” https:// www.powerswitchaction.org/resources/community-benefitsagreements/ Robert Redford Conservancy, Radical Research, and R-NOW [Riverside Neighbors Opposing Warehouses]. 2024. “Warehouse CITY.” https://radicalresearch.shinyapps.io/WarehouseCITY/
Roosevelt, Margot. 2022. “In California’s Largest Race Bias Cases, Latino Workers Are Accused of Abusing Black Colleagues.” Los Angeles Times, August 22. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022- 08-22/california-racial-discrimination-cases

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46 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
Rosen, Jovanna. 2023. Community Benefits: Developers, Negotiations, and Accountability. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Rosenblatt, Lauren. 2023. “Amazon Warehouse Work Is Getting Safer but Still More Dangerous than 2020.” Seattle Times, April 12. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-warehouse-workis-getting-safer-but-still-more-dangerous-than-2020/ Sainato, Michael. 2023. “Amazon’s First Delivery Workers to Unionize Were Later Fired—Now They’re Striking at Warehouses.” Guardian, November 13. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/13/ amazon-drivers-union-fired-strike
Saito, Leland T. 2012. “How Low-Income Residents Can Benefit from Urban Development: The LA Live Community Benefits Agreement.” City & Community 11(2): 129–50.

Saito, Leland T. 2022. Building Downtown Los Angeles: The Politics of Race and Place in Urban America. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Salazar, Christopher. 2023. “San Bernardino Amazon Worker Target of Union Busting Efforts, Says IE Amazon Workers United.” Frontline Observer, January 6. https://www.frontline-observer.com/sanbernardino-amazon-air-worker-target-of-union-busting-effortslabor-groups-claim/ San Bernardino County. 2024. Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting, January 23. https://sanbernardino.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx? ID=1163606&GUID=5B56DC45-36E1-4311-A14B-CA2720527340
Scauzillo, Steve. 2022. “Chaffey College Using $500,000 Grant to Prepare Students for Warehouse Jobs.” San Bernardino Sun, March 26. https://www.sbsun.com/2022/03/26/chaffey-college-using-500000- grant-to-prepare-students-for-warehouse-jobs/
Semuels, Alana. 2021. “The Truck Driver Shortage Doesn’t Exist.” Time, November 12. https://time.com/6116853/truck-driver-shortagesupply-chain/ Singh, Maanvi. 2022. “How Giant Amazon Warehouses Are Choking a California Town.” Consumer Reports, September 13. https://www. consumerreports.org/environment-sustainability/how-giantamazon-warehouses-are-choking-a-california-town-a7109420991/ Singh, Maanvi and Aliya Uteuova. 2022. “Revealed: How Warehouses Took Over Southern California ‘Like a Slow Death.’” Guardian, December

29. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/29/
e-commerce-warehouses-amazon-ups-fedex-california-pollution Smallwood-Cuevas, Lola, Semi Cole, Ellen Reese, and Gary Rettberg. 2020. Ain’t No Sunshine: The State of Black Workers and Demands for a Brighter Future in the Inland Empire. Inland Empire Black Worker Center Project Advisory Group. https://www.iebwc.org/aintno-sunshine Smith, Rebecca, Paul A. Marvy, and Jon Zerolnick. 2014. The Big Rig Overhaul: Restoring Middle-Class Jobs at America’s Ports Through Labor Law Enforcement. National Employment Law Project, Change to Win Strategic Organizing Center, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. https://www.nelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ Big-Rig-Overhaul-Misclassification-Port-Truck-Drivers-LaborLaw-Enforcement.pdf South Coast Air Quality Management District. 2024. “WAIRE Program.” Rules & Compliance. http://www.aqmd.gov/home/rules-compliance/ compliance/waire-program
St. John, Jeff. 2023. “EV Chargers Have a Big Reliability Problem. Can the Government Fix It?” Canary Media, December 11. https://www. canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/ev-chargers-have-a-bigreliability-problem-can-the-government-fix-it Strategic Organizing Center. 2021. Primed for Pain: Amazon’s Epidemic of Workplace Injuries. Washington, DC: Strategic Organizing Center. https://thesoc.org/amazon-primed-for-pain/
Strategic Organizing Center. 2022. The Injury Machine: How Amazon’s Production System Hurts Workers. Washington, DC: Strategic Organizing Center. https://thesoc.org/what-we-do/the-injurymachine-how-amazons-production-system-hurts-workers/ Strategic Organizing Center. 2023. In Denial: Amazon’s Continuing Failure to Fix its Injury Crisis. Washington, DC: Strategic Organizing Center. https://thesoc.org/what-we-do/in-denial-amazons-continuingfailure-to-fix-its-injury-crisis/ Teamsters. 2023a. National Master United Parcel Service Agreement for the Period August 1, 2023 through July 31, 2028. https://teamster. org/ups-agreements-2023-2028/
Teamsters. 2023b. “Teamsters, California Pols Rally to Demand Gov.

Newsom Sign AB 316.” Press release, September 19. https:// teamster.org/2023/09/teamsters-california-pols-rally-to-demandgov-newsom-sign-ab-316/ Teamsters. 2024. “Teamsters Applaud Introduction of CARS Package on Autonomous Vehicles.” Press release, January 16. https://teamster. org/2024/01/teamsters-applaud-introduction-of-cars-packageon-autonomous-vehicles/ Torres, Ivette, Anthony Victoria, People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, and Dan Klooster and University of Redlands students. 2021.

Warehouses, Pollution, and Social Disparities: An Analytical View of the Logistics Industry’s Impact on Environmental Justice Communities Across Southern California. https://earthjustice.org/experts/ ivette-torres/warehouses-pollution-and-social-disparities UC Berkeley Labor Center. 2020. “HRTP Essential Elements: Worker Voice.” Four Essential Elements of High Road Training Partnerships. https://cwdb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2020/08/HRTPessential-element-3-worker-voice-FINAL_ACCESSIBLE.pdf U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2023. “Employment Projections Data Definitions.” Employment Projections, September 6. https://www. bls.gov/emp/documentation/definitions.htm
U.S. Department of Commerce. 2022. Job Quality Toolkit. https://www. commerce.gov/work-us/job-quality-toolkit
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U.S. Department of Labor. 2024. “U.S. Department of Labor Announces Final Rule on Classifying Workers as Employees or Independent Contractors Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.” News Release, January 9. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/
whd20240109-1
U.S. Government Accountability Office. 2022. Workforce Automation:

Insights into Skills and Training Programs for Impacted Workers. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105159
Viscelli, Steve. 2016. The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream. Oakland: University of California Press.

Viscelli, Steve. 2018. Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker. UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and Working Partnerships USA. https://laborcenter. berkeley.edu/driverless/
Volvo Group North America. 2022. Volvo LIGHTS: Bringing Battery-Electric Freight Trucks to Market, from Demonstration to Commercialization; Lessons Learned. https://www.lightsproject.com/volvo-group-northamerica-publishes-lessons-learned-guidebook-for-volvo-lightsproject/ Warehouse Worker Resource Center. 2023a. “Workers Call on Cal/OSHA to Protect Workers and End Delays on Indoor Heat Standard.” Press release, May 18. https://warehouseworkers.org/workers-call-oncal-osha-to-protect-workers-and-end-delays-on-indoor-heatstandard/

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire 47
Warehouse Worker Resource Center. 2023b. “Warming Climate, Heat Wave Threaten Workers.” Press release, July 18.
https://warehouseworkers.org/warming-climate-heat-wavethreaten-workers/ Whitehead, Brian. 2023. “$12.4 Million Center Brings Trade Education to Pacific High in San Bernardino.” San Bernardino Sun, March 6. https://www.sbsun.com/2023/03/06/12-4-million-center-bringstechnical-trades-to-pacific-high-in-san-bernardino/ Women in Trucking Association. 2023. Women in Trucking Index, 2023:

Executive Summary. https://www.womenintrucking.org/index Yee, Gregory. 2022. “Why Amazon Warehouse Workers Walked Off the Job in San Bernardino.” Los Angeles Times, August 15. https://www. latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-15/amazon-warehouseworkers-walkout-san-bernardino-air-hub To view the report appendices, please see: https://ielcc.ucr.edu/research

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48 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire

AUTHORS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge everyone who gave time to be interviewed for this report. In addition, we thank the following individuals for their contributions and support:

Hillary Jenks, Inland Empire Labor Institute
Sir Duplechan, Plug In IE
Randy Korgan, Shaun Martinez, and Mario Vasquez, Teamsters Local 1932 Andrea Vidaurre and Ivette Torres, People’s Collective for Environmental Justice Yassi Kavezade, Sierra Club
The CREATE-IE research team, 2022–23, UC Riverside
Dr. Nosakhere Thomas and Monét Warren, Inland Empire Black Worker Center Joyce Guy, Tarecq Amer, Wonda Kidd, and Regina Amos, West Oakland Job Resource Center Shelly Hinkle, Northern California Teamsters Apprentice Training and Education Trust Fund This report was produced through a collaboration that involved the Center for Social Innovation at UCR, the Inland Empire Labor & Community Center, and Plug In IE, a project of the Inland Empire Labor Institute. The following authors contributed to this report: Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal, Michael Bates, Marissa Brookes, Sara Bruene, Eric Calderon, Natalie Carranza, Elvira De La Torre, Pedro Freire, Catherine Gudis, Jingyan Guo, Gregory B. Hutchins, KeAysia Jackson, Manisha Kapoor, Fatima Nelson, Zhuoyu Qiu, Ellen Reese, Gary Rettberg, Beth Tamayose, and Athena Tan.

We thank the workers who shared their personal stories with us for this report and Sonia Rana for additional research assistance. We additionally extend our gratitude to Zoe Caras, Jeddy Jacinto Molina, and Eren Whitfield for their support.

This report was funded by a California Workforce Development Board High Road Training Partnerships WIOA 3.0 grant, with additional support from the James Irvine Foundation, the UC Workers Rights Policy Collaborative, and a UCR OASIS internal award.

Cover photo courtesy of Freddy Calderon

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2 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire

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APPENDICES

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:1
APPENDIX 1: SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES
TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING: A LARGE AND RAPIDLY GROWING INDUSTRY IN THE IE Table 1 shows the top 5 employing industries in the Inland Empire, which employ 57 percent of the total number of jobs (or employed workers) in the region for the most recent year provided by the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI). In Table 1 “Other So Cal” includes the following six Southern California counties that surround the IE: Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.

According to Quarterly Workforce data for 2021 (3rd quarter)-2022 (2nd quarter) and using 2-digit industry codes, the Transportation and Warehousing industry is the second largest employing industry in the Inland Empire, providing 13 percent of all jobs. It provides the largest percentage of jobs (16.2%) by industry in San Bernardino County and the fourth highest percentage of jobs in Riverside County (9.7%).

TABLE 1. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL EMPLOYMENT IN THE TOP 5 EMPLOYING INDUSTRIES IN THE IE (2021 Q3–2022 Q2) Jobs by Industry by Region
Industry Inland Empire Riverside San Bernardino Other SoCal California Total Employment 1,595,771 778,113 817,659 8,394,856 17,289,942 Health Care and Social Assistance 14.9 14.7 15.2 15.4 15.2 Transportation and Warehousing 13 9.7 16.2 3.6 4.6
Retail Trade 10.8 11 10.5 9.1 9.1
Accommodation and Food Services 9.9 11.5 8.3 9.1 8.8
Educational Services 8.4 9.1 7.7 8.2 8.2
Source: QWI (2-digit industry codes)
The actual extent of employment in transportation and warehousing occupations is even larger since many are employed as warehouse workers, truck drivers, and those who supervise and manage those occupations are employed in other industries, including Employment Services (which includes the Temporary Help industry), Retail Trade, and Wholesale Trade industries.

The Transportation and Warehousing industry is not only large, but has grown rapidly in the past five years (See Table 2). Overall employment in the Inland Empire has increased by 12.61 percent during the last five years, compared to 3.95 percent in California. Notably, the Transportation and Warehousing employment jumped from 11,2058 to 20,5863, marking an increase of 83.71 percent over the five-year period. As shown below, the percent increase in the Transportation and Warehousing industry was greater in San Bernardino (nearly 87 percent) than in Riverside (about 74 percent).

Other workers in the region besides those directly employed in this industry have been affected by the growth of this industry, including those building warehouses, repairing roads, providing supplies to warehouses and truckers, or selling food and refreshments to those employed in this industry.

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A1:2 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
TABLE 2. TRENDS IN EMPLOYMENT OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS
Inland Empire Riverside San Bernardino
Employment
(2016 Q3-
2017 Q2)
Employment
(2021 Q3-
2022 Q2)
Percent
Change
Employment
(2016 Q3-
2017 Q2)
Employment
(2021 Q3-
2022 Q2)
Percent
Change
Employment
(2016 Q3-
2017 Q2)
Employment
(2021 Q3-
2022 Q2)
Percent
Change
Health Care and Social Assistance 204,298 236,099 15.57% 95,207 113,198 18.90% 109,091 122,902 12.66% Transportation and Warehousing 112,058 205,863 83.71% 41,771 74,518 78.40% 70,287 131,345 86.87% Retail Trade 170,858 170,541 -0.19% 84,662 85,077 0.49% 86,197 85,464 -0.85% Accommodation and Food Services 147,020 156,334 6.34% 83,493 88,943 6.53% 63,527 67,391 6.08% Educational Services 132,964 132,901 -0.05% 69,188 70,299 1.61% 63,776 62,602 -1.84% Source Note: QWI data from 2016 Q3–2017 Q2 until 2021 Q3–2022 Q2 (2-digit industry codes) TABLE 3. CHARACTERISTICS OF 6 SELECTED TDL OCCUPATIONS (4-DIGIT CODES) Occupation Code 160 9130 9620 9640 9005 9600
Occupation Name
Transportation,
Storage,
and Distribution
managers
Driver/
Sales
Workers
and Truck
Drivers
Laborers and
Freight,
Stock, and
Material
Movers,
Hand
Packers
and Packagers,
Hand
Supervisors of
Transportation and
Material
Moving
Workers
Industrial
Truck and
Tractor
Operators
Number employed 4688 78126 70394 31701 6807 22597
Average earnings 66424 45142 28887 24555 53830 32879
Percentage that work 35 hours per week or more 83 80 65 71 88 87 Percentage that work 50-52 weeks per year 81 75 60 57 87 76 Percentage with Medical insurance covered by
employer 71 54 51 42 76 56
Percentage that are women 22 8 28 58 29 11
Percentage that are Black or Latino 60 73 76 89 69 86
Percentage that are foreign born 26 38 27 42 21 33
Time spent traveling to work 34 37 29 27 34 29
Percentage with a BA degree or above 24 5 4 5 11 3

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:3
Occupation Code 160 9130 9620 9640 9005 9600
Occupation Name
Transportation,
Storage,
and Distribution
managers
Driver/
Sales
Workers
and Truck
Drivers
Laborers and
Freight,
Stock, and
Material
Movers,
Hand
Packers
and Packagers,
Hand
Supervisors of
Transportation and
Material
Moving
Workers
Industrial
Truck and
Tractor
Operators
Percentage with some college 28 22 23 17 29 16
Percentage with high school degree 44 54 57 54 54 61
Percentage with less than high school 4 19 16 24 5 20
Minimum age 21 16 16 16 19 18
Maximum age 81 94 85 87 77 88
Average age 42 43 34 35 40 38
Median age 40 45 31 33 37 36
Notes: data are sourced from the American Community Survey (ACS) provided by IPUMS (2021 5-year file) Earnings are Lower in the IE Compared to the State and Neighboring Southern California Counties Table 4 below shows the average monthly earnings in the Transportation and Warehousing industry and for all industries overall by region in the most recent year of data provided by QWI. Within this sector and all industries, average monthly earnings are lower in the Inland Empire than in other Southern California counties and California, although the difference is smaller within the Transportation and Warehousing industry which is relatively lower paying compared to all industries combined.

TABLE 4: AVERAGE MONTHLY EARNINGS BY INDUSTRY
Industry Inland Empire Riverside San Bernardino Other SoCal California Overall 4,872  4,789  4,950  6,268  7,141
Transportation and Warehousing 4,372  4,353  4,383  5,729  5,983 Source: QWI, 3rd Qtr, 2021-2nd Qtr, 2022 (2-digit industry codes)

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A1:4 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
TABLE 5. TDL REPORT FOR 25 NAICS CODES (2022)
NAICS Code
Number
Employed
Percentage
Black or
Latino
Percentage
Women
Average
Monthly
Earnings
(Beginning
of Quarter)
4231 Motor Vehicle and Motor Vehicle Parts and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers 8234 57 28 5681 4232 Furniture and Home Furnishing Merchant Wholesalers 3152 56 38 8304 4233 Lumber and Other Construction Materials Merchant Wholesalers 4254 63 24 6139 4234 Professional and Commercial Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers 5818 47 39 5563 4235 Metal and Mineral (except Petroleum) Merchant Wholesalers 1939 61 25 6831 4236 Household Appliances and Electrical and Electronic Goods Merchant Wholesalers 3615 42 35 5578 4237 Hardware, and Plumbing and Heating Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers 4972 60 26 6613 4238 Machinery, Equipment, and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers 6525 52 26 5555 4241 Paper and Paper Product Merchant Wholesalers 1639 50 34 6193 4242 Drugs and Druggists’ Sundries Merchant Wholesalers 2166 40 56 5528 4243 Apparel, Piece Goods, and Notions Merchant Wholesalers 1867 56 52 4790 4244 Grocery and Related Product Merchant Wholesalers 12021 68 30 5877 4245 Farm Product Raw Material Merchant Wholesalers 390 56 31 6249 4246 Chemical and Allied Products Merchant Wholesalers 1211 52 34 6600 4247 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Merchant Wholesalers 612 55 24 5642 4248 Beer, Wine, and Distilled Alcoholic Beverage Merchant Wholesalers 757 64 16 4451 4249 Miscellaneous Nondurable Goods Merchant Wholesalers 3868 51 36 4425 4821 Rail Transportation . . . .
4841 General Freight Trucking 26162 71 19 6030
4842 Specialized Freight Trucking 8597 68 17 5223
4885 Freight Transportation Arrangement 4402 66 35 4587 4911 Postal Service 162 10 36 5883
4921 Couriers and Express Delivery Services 22278 70 26 6715 4931 Warehousing and Storage 135115 69 46 6206
8113 Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment (except Automotive and Electronic) Repair and Maintenance 2517 45 16 5368
Notes: The data in Table 6 are from QWI. The values are the average over the four quarters in 2022 weighted by the number of employed.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:5
TABLE 6: TOP 20 INDUSTRIES BY EMPLOYMENT IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY Rank NAICS Industry Employment Earnings
1 7225 Restaurants and Other Eating Places 70317 2212
2 4931 Warehousing and Storage 57291 3753
3 6111 Elementary and Secondary Schools 56198 5760
4 6241 Individual and Family Services 34117 1713
5 6221 General Medical and Surgical Hospitals 23350 7388 6 5613 Employment Services 20023 2813
7 2381 Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors 19747 3632 8 7211 Traveler Accommodation 19461 4093
9 2382 Building Equipment Contractors 18914 5329
10 4451 Grocery and Convenience Retailers  16297 2978
11 5617 Services to Buildings and Dwellings 15066 3472
12 2383 Building Finishing Contractors 13505 3723
13 4552 Warehouse Clubs, Supercenters, and Other General Merchandise Retailers  12590 3210 14 6211 Offices of Physicians 11556 7044
15 7139 Other Amusement and Recreation Industries 10501 2659 16 9221 Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities  9944 7947 17 5616 Investigation and Security Services 9085 3460
18 9211 Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support  8517 6896 19 9231 Administration of Human Resource Programs  8405 7149 20 6113 Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools 8176 5596 Notes: This table shows the top 20 industries by employment in Riverside County in 2022 using 4-digit industry codes.

The data are from QWI from the US Census Bureau. Among the 20 largest employing industries, warehousing and storage ranked first, while transportation industries are not among the top 20.

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A1:6 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
TABLE 7: TOP 20 INDUSTRIES BY EMPLOYMENT IN SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY Rank NAICS Industry Employment Earnings
1 4931 Warehousing and Storage 78570 3613
2 7225 Restaurants and Other Eating Places 63623 2123
3 6111 Elementary and Secondary Schools 50011 5356
4 5613 Employment Services 41427 2600
5 6241 Individual and Family Services 31405 1854
6 6221 General Medical and Surgical Hospitals 29296 6498 7 4841 General Freight Trucking 19763 4914
8 4921 Couriers and Express Delivery Services 18128 3856 9 4451 Grocery and Convenience Retailers  14918 2979
10 9221 Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities  14050 7984 11 6211 Offices of Physicians 13094 7720
12 2382 Building Equipment Contractors 12510 6325
13 4552 Warehouse Clubs, Supercenters, and Other General Merchandise Retailers  12011 3071 14 6214 Outpatient Care Centers 11244 7026
15 9211 Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support  10462 8559 16 2381 Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors 9668 4401 17 5617 Services to Buildings and Dwellings 8067 3741
18 8111 Automotive Repair and Maintenance 7894 3904
19 4411 Automobile Dealers  7420 7915
20 4244 Grocery and Related Product Merchant Wholesalers  7196 5656 Notes: This table shows the top 20 industries by employment in San Bernardino County in 2022. The data are from QWI from the US Census Bureau. The top industries by employment in San Bernardino County are warehousing and storage, restaurants, elementary and secondary schools, employment services, and individual and family services.

Among those industries, warehousing & storage ranked 1st (and average monthly pay in this industry is lower compared to Riverside County). General freight trucking ranked 7th and courier and express delivery services ranked 8th.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:7
JOB QUALITY IN WAREHOUSE OCCUPATIONS: INEQUALITIES ACROSS INDUSTRIES Workers employed in transportation and warehouse occupations confront unequal employment conditions across industries. For example, while warehouse workers are typically employed in the traditional ‘warehousing and storage’ industry, some are employed within other industries, such as Employment Services (which includes the temporary help industry) and the electronic shopping industry.

Table 8 below shows how various aspects of job quality among warehouse workers differ across these three industries in the most recent 5-year ACS data. In the Inland Empire, most employees of “freight, stock, and material handlers” work in “warehousing and storage” industry, followed by “electronic shopping” and “employment services.” “Warehousing and storage” have the largest share of workers employed full-time (35 hours or more per week) and full-year (50-52 weeks per year, and thus they have the highest median income. On the other hand, temporary agency workers in the “employment services” have the lowest median wages, partly related to the smaller share of workers that are full-time and full-year. Workers in “electronic shopping” are more likely to have health benefits (or employer-provided health insurance), while workers in the “employment service” are the least likely to have health benefits.

TABLE 8: JOB QUALITY IN THE OCCUPATIONS OF “FREIGHT, STOCK, AND MATERIAL HANDLERS” IN THE IE Industry Median Wage
% Employed
full-time
% Employed
full-year
% with Health
Benefits
Electronic shopping $21,579 75.96% 70.61% 72.86%
Employment services $15,700 70.65% 52.28% 34.63%
Warehousing and storage $24,074 89.38% 78.18% 51.45%
Source: ACS 2021 5-year file
For five common blue-collar and non-supervisory warehousing occupations, including “laborer and freight, stock, and material movers, hand,” “packers and packagers, hand,” most workers are employed in the traditional “warehousing and storage” industry, followed by the newer “electronic shopping” industry, with the least number employed in the “employment services” industry in the Inland Empire. On the other hand, while “warehousing and storage” have the largest percentage of full-time and full-year workers, the percentage of full-year workers is lower in “employment services” than in “electronic shopping,” and the percentage of full-time workers is higher in “Employment services” than in “Electronic shopping.” Across all industries, median wages are relatively low.

TABLE 9: JOB QUALITY IN FIVE COMMON BLUE-COLLAR AND NON-SUPERVISORY WAREHOUSING OCCUPATIONS IN THE IE Industry Median Wage
% Employed
full-time
% Employed
full-year
% with Health
Benefits
Electronic shopping 21579 71.99% 70.31% 70.24%
Employment services 19076 78.79% 58.53% 33.53%
Warehousing and storage 25434 91.15% 80.18% 53.66%
Source: ACS 2021 5-year file, Inland Empire

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A1:8 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire

SELF-EMPLOYMENT IN TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING
A large and increasing number of workers in the Transportation and Warehousing industry are self-employed workers, some of whom are misclassified employees. While there can be some benefits to self-employment, self-employed workers typically do not enjoy the same labor rights as other employed workers and many struggle to earn a good living after paying for their materials and supplies, including maintaining their own trucks and paying for gas.

Figure 1 below shows the rise in the absolute number of self-employed workers in the Transportation and Warehousing industry between 2005 and 2022.

Overall, the number of people engaging in self-employed activities in the transportation and warehousing sector was around 15,463 in the Inland Empire, 45,946 in Southern California, and 78,966 in California in 2005. During 2005-2022, people engaged in self-employment in transportation and warehousing have increased by 41.9 percent, 82.9 percent, and 82.6 percent in the Inland Empire, Southern California, and California respectively.

FIGURE 1. NUMBER OF SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS IN TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING, 2005-2022 Figure 2 plots the number of self-employed workers in Transportation and Warehousing by incorporation status. There are two categories of workers – incorporated and not-incorporated. Incorporated self-employed are individuals that run their business or practice as a separate legal entity. Not-incorporated self-employed are individuals that run their own business which does not have a legal entity of its own.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:9
Non-incorporated self-employed individuals are higher than incorporated self-employed since 2005. In 2005 in California, out of the total self-employed, 79 percent were engaged in non-incorporated activities. A large increase is observed in the non-incorporated self-employed after 2014, which increased from 47,327 to 71,040 between 2014-2015 in California. Since then, this percentage has generally increased with minor dips in 2019. A similar increase is seen in the incorporated self-employed after 2018. The number of people conducting registered self-employment activities increased in California by 11,510 between 2018-2019. With the high increase of incorporated self-employed in 2018 the share of self-employed in non-incorporated activities is moving downwards and currently stands at 67 percent.

FIGURE 2. NUMBER OF SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS IN TRANSPORTATION & WAREHOUSING BY INCORPORATION STATUS, 2005-2022

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A1:10 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
FIGURE 3. SELF-EMPLOYED IN TRANSPORTATION & WAREHOUSING AS A PERCENTAGE OF ALL SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS, 2005 Notes: (from left to right) Panel A shows Inland Empire, Panel B shows Southern California (4 metropolitan regions are included: El Centro; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario), Panel C shows California.

Figure 3 plots the number of self-employed workers in transportation and warehousing as a percentage of all self-employed workers to give us a glimpse of the role that sector plays in the growth of self-employment. Among all self-employed workers in California, the percentage employed in the transportation and warehousing sector has been on the rise since 2014. The same trends are seen for Southern California. Between 2006 and 2014, the share of self-employed in transportation and warehousing as a percentage of all self-employed workers remained below 5 percent in both California as a whole, and the Southern California region. Since 2014, this percentage has risen to around 8-9 percent. The trends for the Inland Empire are somewhat similar but the sample size is limited, reducing the certainty of these findings. However, the overall trend has been on the rise for the region as well.

The pandemic had no effect on the increase in self-employment in transportation and warehousing. This points towards the strong growth of the sector.

Both Figure 3 and Figure 4 show that the share of self-employed in transportation is on the rise recently among the total of self-employed workers and

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:11
total employed workers in transportation for California, the Southern California region, and the Inland Empire. In sum, the absolute rise in self-employment in transportation has been faster not only compared to self-employment generally, but the sectoral growth in employment as well.

Figure 4 and Figure 5 below show the composition of the transportation and warehousing sector by class of workers. In California, the current ratio of self-employed workers to salaried workers in the sector is around 0.15. However, Figure 5 shows that self-employment in transportation and warehousing as a percentage of total employment in transportation and warehousing has been on the rise in California over the last decade. Southern California follows the same pattern as the state average.

FIGURE 4. RATIO OF SELF-EMPLOYED TO SALARIED IN TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING

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A1:12 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
FIGURE 5. SELF-EMPLOYED IN TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING In both California and Southern California, the percentage of self-employed workers to total employed workers in transportation and warehousing bottomed out at around 7-8 percent in 2012 and then rose to close to 13 percent in 2022. The data for the Inland Empire is a bit noisier, potentially due to the small sample size, but the share of self-employed as a percentage of total employed workers in transportation and warehousing for the county has hovered around 10 percent over the last decade. In other words, for every 10 employed workers in this sector, there is another worker who is self-employed within it. These self-employed workers include truck drivers who are owner-operators as well as other types of self-employed workers, such as gig workers that are classified as independent contractors.

In times of recessions – in 2008 and 2020 – the plots for California and Southern California show an uptick in the percentage of all employed workers in the transportation and warehousing industry who are self-employed. In other words, the number of self-employed workers in this industry rose more quickly than other forms of employment in transportation and warehousing during those recession years. This could be due to employers relying more heavily on self-employed workers as a way to cut labor costs as well as workers entering self-employment in response to shrinking employment opportunities within this sector.

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A1:13
TABLE 10. U.S. UNION DENSITY AND COVERAGE RATES IN SELECTED TDL OCCUPATIONS, 2023 Occupation
% Union
Members
% Union
Covered
Drivers/sales Workers & Truck Drivers 9.6%  10.50%
Industrial Tractor Operators/Forklift Drivers 11.50% 12.60% Laborers, and Freight, Stock & Material Movers 12.20% 13.3% Packers and Packagers, Hand 5.90% 6.5%
Shipping, Receiving, & Inventory Clerks 7.40% 8.60%
Stockers and Order Fillers 5.90% 6.5%
Supervisors of Trans. & Material Moving Workers 10.10% 11.20% Transportation, Storage, & Distribution Managers 5.60% 6.70% Notes: Percentages shown are for the percent of employed workers in the U.S.

Source: Hirsch, MacPherson and Even (2023), available at https://unionstats.com

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A1:14 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
FIGURE 6. FULL-TIME AND YEAR-ROUND WORK FOR SELECTED TDL OCCUPATIONS

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State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire A2:1
APPENDIX 2: OCCUPATIONS USED IN

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
The occupational codes used in this report vary by the
data set. We selected the most detailed occupational
codes for each occupation available from that source
that were available at the county level.

AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY (AVAILABLE

THROUGH IPUMS)
Using ACS data, we selected the eight occupational
categories, which were the most detailed occupational
categories available through IPUMS at the county level
for blue-collar warehouse workers, heavy-duty and light duty truck drivers, and their supervisors and managers.

Our descriptions below are from the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics’ Division of Occupational Wage and
Employment Statistics (May 2022). For warehouse workers, we selected five of the most common blue-collar and non-supervisory warehouse occupations, following
De Lara (2013).
53-7062 Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material
Movers, Hand
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers
employed in this occupation “manually move freight,
stock, luggage, or other materials, or perform other
general labor. Includes all manual laborers not elsewhere classified.” This occupational code excludes “Construction Laborers” (47-2061) and “Helpers, Construction Trades” (47-3011 through 47-3019). Excludes “Material Moving Workers” (53-7011 through 53-7199)
who use power equipment.”
See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537062.htm
53-7065 Stockers and Order Fillers
Workers employed in this occupation “receive, store,
and issue merchandise, materials, equipment, and
other items from stockroom, warehouse, or storage
yard to fill shelves, racks, tables, or customers’ orders.

May operate power equipment to fill orders. May mark
prices on merchandise and set up sales displays.” This
occupation excludes “Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks” (43-5071), “Laborers and Freight, Stock, and
Material Movers, Hand” (53-7062), and “Packers and
Packagers, Hand” (53-7064).

See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537065.htm
53-7051 Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators
Workers employed in this occupation “operate industrial trucks or tractors equipped to move materials around
a warehouse, storage yard, factory, construction site,
or similar location.” Excluded from this occupation are “Logging Equipment Operators” (45-4022).

See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537051.htm
53-7064 Packers and Packagers, Hand
Workers employed in this occupation, “Pack or package
by hand a wide variety of products and materials.”
See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537064.htm
43-5071 Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks
Workers in this occupation, “verify and maintain
records on incoming and outgoing shipments involving inventory. Duties include verifying and recording incoming merchandise or material and arranging for
the transportation of products.” These workers, “may
prepare items for shipment.” The occupation excludes
“Weighers, Measurers, Checkers, and Samplers,
Recordkeeping” (43-5111), “Mail Clerks and Mail
Machine Operators, except Postal Service” (43-9051),
and “Stockers and Order Fillers” (53-7065).

See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/
oes435071.htm#ind
53-3030 Driver/Sales Workers and Truck Drivers
According to the BLS, workers employed in this occupation include the following three types of workers:
• 53-3031 Driver/Sales Workers
• 53-3032 Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
• 53-3033 Light Truck Drivers
53-3031 Driver/Sales Workers
Workers in this occupation, “drive truck or other vehicle over established routes or within an established territory and sell or deliver goods, such as food products, including restaurant take-out items, or pick up or deliver items such as commercial laundry.” These
workers can also “take orders, collect payment, or stock merchandise at point of delivery.” This occupation does not include “Coin, Vending, and Amusement Machine
Servicers and Repairers” (49-9091) and “Light Truck
Drivers” (53-3033).

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A2:2 State of Work: TDL in the Inland Empire
See: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/delivery-truck-drivers-and-driver-salesworkers.htm 53-3032 Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
Workers in this occupation “drive a tractor-trailer
combination or a truck with a capacity of at least 26,001 pounds Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW).” Some of these
workers are “required to unload truck[s].” Workers
in this job are required to have a commercial drivers’
license. This occupation “includes tow truck drivers,”
and “excludes “Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors” (53-7081).

See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm
53-3033 Light Truck Drivers
Workers in this occupation, “drive a light vehicle, such as a truck or van, with a capacity of less than 26,001
pounds Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), primarily to pick
up merchandise or packages from a distribution center
and deliver.” This occupation “may load and unload
vehicle.” This occupation does not include “Couriers
and Messengers” (43-5021) and “Driver/Sales Workers”
(53-3031).

See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533033.htm
11-3071 Transportation, Storage, and Distribution
Managers
Workers in this occupation “plan, direct, or coordinate transportation, storage, or distribution activities in
accordance with organizational policies and applicable
government laws or regulations.” This occupation
“includes logistics managers.”
See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes113071.htm
53-1047 First-Line Supervisors of Transportation
and Material Moving Workers, Except Aircraft Cargo
Handling Supervisors
This occupation includes the following 2018 SOC occupations: “53-1042 First-Line Supervisors of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand; 53-1043 FirstLine Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators; 53-1044 First-Line Supervisors of
Passenger Attendants; and 53-1049 First-Line Supervisors of Transportation Workers, All Other.” See: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes531047.htm

BURNING GLASS DATA ANALYSIS (NOVEMBER
2020 THROUGH OCTOBER 2021).

Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
53-3032.00
According to O-Net Online, heavy and tractor-trailer
truck drivers, “Drive a tractor-trailer combination or a truck with a capacity of at least 26,001 pounds Gross
Vehicle Weight (GVW),” “may be required to unload
truck,” and “requires commercial drivers’ license.” This occupation includes tow truck drivers as well as workers employed in job titles such as the following: “CDL Driver (Commercial Driver’s License Driver), Driver,
Line Haul Driver, Log Truck Driver, Over the Road Driver (OTR Driver), Production Truck Driver, Road Driver, Semi Truck Driver, Tractor Trailer Driver, Truck Driver.”
See: https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/
53-3032.00
Light Truck Drivers
53-3033.00
According to O-Net Online, light truck drivers, “drive a light vehicle, such as a truck or van, with a capacity of less than 26,001 pounds Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW),
primarily to pick up merchandise or packages from a
distribution center and deliver.” They might be required to “load and unload vehicle[s].” This occupational code includes workers employed in job titles such as the
following: “Bulk Delivery Driver, Delivery Driver, Driver, Light Truck Driver, Package Car Driver, Package Delivery Driver, Route Driver, Service Provider, Truck Driver, Warehouse Driver.”
See: https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/
53-3033.00#:~:text=Read%20maps%20and%20
follow%20written,statements%2C%20in%20
accordance%20with%20regulations.

Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers,
Hand
53-7062.00
According to O’Net Online, laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand “manually move freight, stock,luggage, or other materials, or perform other general labor,” and it “includes all manual laborers not elsewhere classified.” This occupational code includes workers employed in job titles such as the following: Dock Worker, Laborer, Line Tender, Loader, Material Handler, Merchandise Pick Up Associate, Receiver, Receiving Associate, Shipping and Receiving Materials Handler, Warehouse Worker.”
See: https://www.onetonline.org/link/details/53-7062.00

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