Wednesday's walkout at the NFI warehouse came a day before Warehouse Workers United and other labor supporters were planning to begin a 50-mile protest march from the Inland Empire to downtown Los Angeles that is supposed to take place over about five days.
A spokeswoman for a group that is supporting the workers said they were suffering from poorly ventilated workspaces, high heat, and faulty and unsafe equipment.
The protest took place at a warehouse operated by NFI Industries, which employs about 300 workers. NFI is a New Jersey logistics, storage and distribution services company that operates warehouses in several Southern California locations for major retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
“These workers have exhausted all options,” said Guadalupe Palma, a director of Warehouse Workers United, an organization that receives funding from the Change to Win labor federation and has been working to try to organize Inland Empire warehouse workers.
The walkout was the latest in a series of escalating conflicts between workers at the nation’s largest network of warehouse and distribution centers and their employers.
In June, a study released by the labor-backed group National Employment Law Project said that Wal-Mart had applied its aggressive cost-cutting to logistics, helping to drive down wages and benefits for U.S. warehouse workers.