Panel: Warehousing and Quality of Jobs in the Inland Empire

In this episode, Dr. Johannes Moenius, Peggi Hazlett, Sheheryar Kaoosji, and Dr. Juan De Lara talk with the University of California, Riverside Inland Center for Sustainable Development about the impacts of logistics and warehousing on employment and quality of jobs in the Inland Region.  

About the Inland Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD):

Established in 2003, the ICSD conducts and disseminates research and reports on issues of suburban growth and its impact on social, environmental, and transport systems. At our center, we focus on our region's interconnections between social well-being, the economy, and environmental sustainability. 

Learn more about ICSD via icsd.ucr.edu 

Podcast Highlights:  

“It's really hard to overestimate the importance of the logistics sector for the Inland Empire at this point in the economic development of the Inland Empire and actually also for the Southern California region. It’s by now the largest employer - about 16.4% of all employment in the Inland Empire actually is in the logistics sector."

-        Dr. Johannes Moenius on the topic of the impact of the logistics sector within the Inland Empire. 

“This sector in particular has designed its workflows and its work systems in a way to really take advantage of temporary work to really keep a permanent underclass of workers who are always desperate to get a permanent job. It also destabilizes the sector because those people who do have permanent jobs know there's always somebody looking over their shoulder for the next person who's trying to get their job, doing that same job sometimes for half the wage.”

-       Sheheryar Kaoosji on the topic of the detrimental hiring practices that are standard within the warehousing industry. 

“I'd like to see a shift in the narrative when we start to talk about these things. I'd like to see some change in the way that the industry is upskilling its employees to make sure that they are the next generation of workers that we need to have to move with the technology changes that are happening in the industry.”

-       Peggi Hazlett on the topic of the future of warehousing industry jobs as technology only continues to advance. 

Guests:

Dr. Johannes Moenius (William R. and S. Sue Johnson Endowed Chair of Spatial Economic Analysis and Regional Planning at University of Redlands)
Peggi Hazlett (Chief Executive Officer, Greater Ontario Business Council)
Sheheryar Kaoosji (Executive Director, Warehouse Worker Resource Center)
Dr. Juan De Lara (Director, Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies at University of Southern California) 

Interviewer:

Rick Bishop (External Director, Inland Center for Sustainable Development)

Music by: C Codaine
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/Minimal_1625

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Xylo-Ziko/Phase

Commercial Link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/winning-big-for-workers-through-politics-and-policy-registration-799346445737 

This is a production of the UCR School of Public Policy: https://spp.ucr.edu/ 

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Learn more about the series and other episodes via https://spp.ucr.edu/podcast.