News

Nov 09, 2023

Inland Empire warehouse workers say they’re sick of — and from — the heat

Working in a warehouse for 10 hours is bound to make you sweat. But Anna Ortega

Working in a warehouse for 10 hours is bound to make you sweat.

But Anna Ortega said she's also gotten headaches and nosebleeds and become nauseated and dizzy from laboring in the heat at Amazon's air freight facility in San Bernardino.

She and other warehouse workers recently urged a state panel to protect them through stronger workplace temperature standards, ones required by a 2016 law but that have yet to be finalized.

"It's heartbreaking to come into work to hear that another coworker, a potential friend, has fainted or needed medical attention from heat exhaustion," Daniel Rivera, an Amazon worker, told the California Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board during its Thursday, May 18 hearing.

Employees’ health and safety "is incredibly important to us, and that's why we have robust heat-related safety protocols that often exceed both industry standards and federal OSHA guidance," Maureen Lynch Vogel, an Amazon spokesperson, said via email.

Amazon "is one of only a few companies in the industry to have installed climate control systems in our fulfillment centers and at every air hub, including (San Bernardino), and those systems constantly measure indoor temperatures and heat index," Vogel said.

Those facilities are monitored by "safety professionals who can take extra steps if needed," Vogel said, adding that Amazon uses "high-volume industrial fans to provide additional cooling, and we train every employee on how to recognize signs of overheating and the importance of hydration and regular breaks."

The Inland Empire knows a lot about high heat and warehouses.

Since 2000, the average high temperature in the summer months for Ontario International Airport — many warehouses are clustered around it — has typically been above 100 degrees, National Weather Service data show. It's even higher in the desert, where a number of warehouses are being built as the Inland region fills out.

In the past decade, the region became ground zero for a logistics boom that developed an estimated 1 billion square feet of warehouse space in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

From 2010 to 2017, the number of warehouse jobs in San Bernardino County roughly doubled to 69,000, according to a county labor market report. Amazon is Riverside County's second-largest employer, at 10,900 jobs, according to the county's budget.

Between March and May, the employee group Inland Empire Amazon Workers United surveyed 264 workers at the San Bernardino air hub. Eighty-four percent said they needed water, a cool place to rest and time to recover during the summer heat.

Vogel said more than 90% of air hub employees in internal surveys said managers are always looking for ways to make things safer.

Tim Shadix, legal director for the Ontario-based Warehouse Worker Resource Center, said many warehouses "are poorly insulated buildings that are just baking in the sun."

The physical nature of warehouse work "puts people in danger of heat illness even when they’re working in much lower temperatures," he said. "Even if it's in the 70s, people are still potentially getting sick because they’re being pushed to work so hard."

The problem extends to non-Amazon warehouses as well, Shadix added.

Ortega told the state board that her department "specifically works around a lot of heavy machinery … that is running for hours."

"Not only do they emit heat," she said. "But they also stop the airflow because of how big they are."

Vogel said Amazon has no records of Ortega reporting heat-related illness and that employees are encouraged to immediately report any illness.

Amazon provided water coolers and fans to workers only after workers demanded it, said Anthony Wooden of the Inland Amazon workers group.

"We had to confront them and demand these basic dignities in the workplace," he told the board.

"The only reason that they’re going to do anything is not because we ask them to," he added. "It's because heroes like (the board) are going to set the standard and say this is where it stops because there are rules in place that are protecting working people."

Fans were installed at the San Bernardino air hub almost a full year before workers submitted a petition demanding them, Vogel said.

Melissa Ojeda said she worked for Amazon before joining the Warehouse Worker Resource Center

"When I was (at Amazon), there was no balance between production and rest, even during the high heat," she told the board.

Sara Fee, who said she works at the San Bernardino air hub, testified that during a shift, her shirt "is soaked in sweat three to four times."

She added: "I have felt heat illness myself. I have been nauseous (and) dizzy and we were told that we have to find a manager and let them know (that) you are suffering from heat stress. And then our walk to a cool-down area is more than half the length of the warehouse."

The air hub is about 660,000 square feet in size.

The allegations workers made to the board "range from misleading to outright false," Vogel said. She said no heat-related illnesses have been reported from the San Bernardino air hub's active loading areas this year and that the inside temperature has never been higher than 78 degrees there.

Not counting break rooms, the air hub has more than 60 water coolers and the facility's air ramp has 5 baggage carts that contain water in coolers and electrolyte pouches, Vogel said. The ramp also has portable misters and air hub employees have less than a one-minute walk to a primary water source, she added.

SB 1167, signed into law in 2016, establishes temperature thresholds that, if reached, would require warehouse employers to take steps to either lower inside temperatures or give workers heat relief.

According to the warehouse worker center, Cal/OSHA was supposed to have drafted those protections by January 2019, but its standards board just held its first hearing on them.

Derek Moore, a Cal/OSHA spokesperson, said via email that the process for creating such rules "is complex, and one that requires in-depth scientific, economic, and fiscal research and analysis."

He added: "This process can take years to complete under ideal circumstances."

Besides wondering what's taken so long, Shadix and warehouse workers also aren't happy with the proposed temperature thresholds of 82 degrees to trigger basic heat mitigation measures — access to cool water, for example — and 87 degrees to require ventilation and other, more extensive steps to lower indoor temperatures.

"This standard of 82 to 87 is just way too high because the heat is just one of the factors that we’re dealing with in the workplace," Wooden said, noting the exertion required to handle hundreds of thousands of packages per shift.

Shadix said warehouses are able to keep heat-sensitive cargo like medicine, food and electronics cool.

"Why are workers not deserving of the same level of protection?"

In a document outlining the standards, Cal/OSHA officials wrote they set the lower threshold at 82 due to concerns that setting it at 80 "would run counter to companies’ efforts to conserve energy."

The standards board is expected to have a final vote on the temperature thresholds next spring, Shadix said.

With summer approaching, "we would obviously like to see them move a lot faster," he added.

Get the latest news delivered daily!