[Music]
temp labor in a way isn't looked at as
an industry what was
that but it's a sector and it's an
industry and the industry is dealing in
moving human beings so instead of moving
Tomatoes I move human beings
[Music]
around we live in a time when at the
click of a mouse goods from around the
globe can arrive convenient ly at our
doorstep Mega retailers like Walmart and
Amazon have created a seamless and
efficient system to get our Goods to us
quickly Amazon is a great
example of of of what's possible last
year during the busiest day of the
Christmas rush customers around the
world ordered more than 300 items from
Amazon every
second and a lot of those traveled
through this building what's not seen
are the people who actually make this
possible kept out of the public eye are
temp workers employed without benefits
or Securities they play an integral role
in keeping costs down and profits High
many of these workers stay silent for
fear of Retribution often having their
livelihoods put in Jeopardy if they
speak out hey bro don't qu that at me
wanting to know more about this integral
yet invisible Workforce we traveled
across the country scouring warehouses
temp agencies and temp towns in search
of the people who make our world of same
day delivery
[Music]
possible over 70% of our consumer goods
come into the US from overseas unloaded
at MEAP ports like the Los Angeles Long
Beach Maritime terminal cargo ships
carrying up to 12,000 containers dock
here every day and the goods they carry
are unloaded and brought to warehouses
to be unpacked and
sorted for the West Coast an area an
hour east of Los Angeles known as the
Inland Empire which was once filled with
horse ranches and citrus Groves is now
Warehouse
Central we're out in front of Schneider
Logistics which exclusively serves
Walmart they have over 2 million square
ft of warehouse space here in the Inland
Empire and it actually spans three
different cities the Inland Empire has
the largest concentration of warehouses
in the world and they serve other
retailers too like GE Nestle Home Depot
and Kmart to name a few as retailers
increase their online sales it's at
places like these that the essential
tasks of sorting labeling and loading
the stuff we buy happens online sales
are growing at a dizzying pace as
consumers increasingly look to the web
to make purchases in uh the big retails
for instance we will probably see a lot
of the behindth scenes workers actually
being temps and the conditions in these
warehouses can be deplorable because we
as American consumers now myself
included expect our Goods to be shipped
to us just like that so what is it like
working at a
warehouse what are the challenges temp
workers
[Applause]
face so we're meeting Javier here and
we're going to hear from him what it was
like working inside one of those massive
warehouses Javier's job was to unpack
and repack containers at a warehouse
where goods were often moved within the
span of a few hours what were you doing
when you were at the
warehouse and were there any grievances
that you had working in those
conditions
Javier's problems with accountability
and safety are common for warehouse
workers and as the sector of employment
expands more and more people are subject
to this kind of
treatment since the recession temporary
employment has increased has added more
jobs than any other industry in the
United States the earliest leader of the
temporary help industry was Elmer winter
who founded and was the CEO of Manpower
Incorporated Manpower is the largest
temp industry from its founding in the
late 40s through the 1990s in the early
years of the temporary help industry
they very much played on this idea that
temp work was women's work in the public
Arena all of the images that they sold
of temporary employment was of these
kind of white middle class um very
feminine women one of the big things
that changed that kind of set the
context for these cultural ideological
changes was really the rising Global
competition basically employers had a
choice about how to
respond and one of those responses could
have been to invest in workers and
instead they took what policy makers
call the low road and de invested in
workers cut permanent employees and
tempt out jobs temps are increasingly
part of a profitable business strategy
of corporate Giants last year Walmart
the world's largest retailer had its
best shopping season yet and Amazon
continues to expand its warehouses and
fulfillment centers even President Obama
has gotten on board because this type of
Labor is impossible to Outsource Amazon
is a great
example of of of what's possible last
year during the busiest day of the
Christmas rush customers around the
world ordered more than
300 items from Amazon every
second and a lot of those travel through
this building what Obama doesn't mention
in his speech is how many of these
industries are using temp labor to get
back on their feet in some distribution
warehouses temps outnumber direct hires
so in general the relationship between
client company or the work site company
a staffing agency in attempt Scholars
have called this a triangular employment
relationship so unlike the normal
employment relationship which has two
entities a worker and an employer this
has three entities it's supposed to be
clear who is responsible who is liable
for the workers but in reality it's not
always
clear once we learn that staffing
agencies are as important to the
logistical system as warehouses we
started to see them
everywhere we followed the railroad
tracks to Chicago the heart of the
country supply chain where yet another
intermediary has
arisen van drivers called reros who do
the Dirty Work temp agencies
won't can I just talk to you for a
[Music]
second yeah there's one right
[Music]
there it looks like there's like maybe 8
10 potentially more people in there
[Music]