Press clips

Reporte Hispano – Participants in today’s news event included: State Senator Linda Greenstein; State Assemblymember Daniel Benson; members and leaders of Warehouse Workers Stand Up; the New Jersey Work Environment Council; New Labor; Make the Road New Jersey; the New Jersey Communications Workers of America (CWA); Working Families Alliance of New Jersey; and the Laundry, Distribution, and Food Service Joint Board of Workers United, SEIU.

WCBS – With hundreds of new warehouses popping up in New Jersey, the group Warehouse Workers Standup is demanding the state withhold subsidies for developers who don’t adhere to a code of conduct to raise working standards.

NJ.com – OSHA fined the same location $7,000 in 2015 for a violation of “recording criteria.” It also investigated an Amazon facility in Avenel in 2013 after a worker was crushed and killed by equipment. Citations in that incident were issued to Genco, a third-party logistics firm operating the facility, and four temporary staffing agencies.

App – Outside, a group of labor advocates called on Amazon, the large e-commerce retailer, to improve safety conditions and programs inside the warehouse, two weeks after one worker was critically injured and two dozen others were sent to the hospital after a can of bear repellent fell off a shelf and discharged.

The Guardian – A coalition of labor advocacy groups is pushing New Jersey to enforce a “code of conduct” for warehouse workers at Amazon and other major online retailers, which includes a minimum wage, stabilized work hours and the right to unionise.

Wall Street Journal – Labor groups are pressing for greater protections for warehouse workers in New Jersey, one of the biggest and fastest-growing distribution areas in the U.S., after an accident at an Amazon.com Inc. facility there that sickened dozens of employees last week.

App – New Jersey’s sprawling Ports of Newark, Elizabeth and Bayonne and its network of highways are helping to fuel the Garden State’s transformation into the warehouse state, an engine fueled by e-commerce deliveries.

But labor unions and community organizers said it comes at a high cost: dangerous workplace conditions and low wages.

NJTV Online – More than 50 warehouse workers, union representatives and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka rallied about being overworked and underpaid after a newly released report by Warehouse Workers Standup showed employees face constant pressure to meet the demands of faster delivery in unsafe work environments.

App – Warehouse Workers demand safety and respect at the Port of Newark

The incident “implies a profound lack of safety planning and training,” said Alberto Arroyo, co-manager of the Laundry, Distribution & Food Service Joint Board of the Workers United/SEIU union, and Debra Coyle McFadden, executive director of the NJ Work Environment Council, in a joint statement. The two groups are part of Warehouse Workers Stand Up, a coalition that is campaigning for reforms to protect warehouse workers.