Madison Aument
With 91.9 KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument. This is Economics IE, where I speak to experts from the Inland Empire to talk about the region’s economy. For today’s episode, Ricardo Cisneros with the Inland Empire Labor Council joined me to talk about improving the lives of the region’s labor force. Can you just talk about what the role of the Inland Empire Labor Council is?
Ricardo Cisneros
Yes. So the Inland Empire Labor Council is a coalition of unions. There's 93 unions under the Labor Council, over 400,000 members in the region. You know, that covers San Bernardino County and Riverside County. We are structured under the National AFL CIO. So, so we are, the way I put it to everyone. We are the hub or the union of unions, right? So, so we, we work with all the different sectors, private sector, public sector and building trades.
Madison Aument
So, I mean, it sounds like you're in communication with a lot of the workers in the region. I'm wondering, as the union of unions, what you're kind of hearing from local workers about the issues they're facing…
Ricardo Cisneros
I mean, right now, as we know, what's facing the working class, especially in this region, is that we're pushing back on an agenda that has been laid out here in the Inland Empire by economists and other business groups. You know, clearly, we had an economist out in this region named John Hewson, who we used to say the Inland Empire is cheap labor and cheap dirt. So come out and do business out here, right? And they did, and that's why we've seen, especially the logistics industry, explode out in this area, because there's a lot, there's a lot of land to build out, and there's a large pool of workers, right? That pretty much put it in my words, they could exploit it. And, and that's what's been going on in the Inland Empire. You see the boom of Amazon. Amazon's pretty much the second largest employer of the Inland Empire at this time. And, we know the quick turnaround of workers that they have. They have workers coming in, and at the same time, they have workers leaving, some of them leaving because they're hurt, right, and they can't do that work anymore. So that's what's been plaguing us, right? The Inland Empire. The other thing is, because we have local economic development agencies that have put all their eggs in one basket, and that's the logistics industry, and that's harmful for the region, because when you do that and say, for example, the industry fails, then our whole local economy tanks.
Madison Aument
How can the lives of Inland Empire workers be improved?
Ricardo Cisneros
I mean, how their lives can be improved is by having good jobs in the area. I mean, and not having them have to drive out to Orange County and Los Angeles to work, because that only brings down your quality of life. I mean, because all you're doing is coming home and going to sleep. Prime example like myself, right? And I can only speak for myself. And my experience on this is, for four years, I had to drive to UCLA and back. So just dealing with that traffic, I will leave my home at 5am to be at UCLA at nine. I would not leave the Westwood area until like 8 P.M. when traffic died down a little bit, and I would still get some traffic just to come home and basically sleep and get up the next morning and do the same, you know. And that's missing out, you know, seeing, you know, seeing your kids growing up, missing games, right? Missing helping them with their homework, you know, and missing being with family, being with your, you know, with your spouse, right? In my case… So it's, it's rough on the family, and it's rough on on us as workers, you know those folks that have to drive out to LA and and Orange County, my hat's off to them, because, you know, it's, it's not just the work that they're doing out there, but it's sitting in those parking lots that we call freeways, you know, that that's rough on on the mind and the body?
Madison Aument
That was Ricardo Cisneros with the Inland Empire Labor Council. Join us again next Monday for Economics IE. You can find this segment and others on our website, at kvcrnews.org/econie. Support for this segment comes from the Nowak Family. For KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument.