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. How can the lives of Inland Empire workers be improved?
Ricardo Cisneros
I mean, how the lives can be improved is by having good jobs in the area, you know, those folks that have to drive out to LA and in 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 the mind and the body, yeah.
Madison Aument
And it seems like, you know, people move to the IE because there's affordable housing historically. And that you should be able to work where you live. So what other work are you doing to kind of ensure that workers in the region are, you know, getting the best opportunities, the best pay?
Ricardo Cisneros
I mean, through, through our affiliates, you know, there's, there's different. Of course, if the job is union, it falls under a collective bargaining agreement. And within those collective bargaining agreements, of course, there's wages benefits, right, and all the other benefits that they get with the union contract. I mean, those are always being fought for to maintain them and also make them better, right? For the workers, also, the other thing that we're doing for workers overall is passing policy through the state. So, for example, when the unions come together and they move to, you know, and pass policy through the state is not just to affect the union workers, it is to affect workers overall. Prime example, the bill that passed for fast food workers, that have now brought fast food workers to $20 plus an hour. You know, that fight's not just for unionized workers, because, in reality, a lot of the workers in the fast food industry are not unionized, but it was passed to help folks, you know, get a little bit of a leg up and be able to provide for their families. A lot of people say, Oh, those jobs are just beginner jobs. But if you really look at it, you see older people working in those McDonald's right working in those fast food places, because they're the lack of jobs that we have in our region, and, and, and, no, they're not startup jobs. I mean, those jobs, they're trying to feed their families with those wages. So, you know, a lot of the times when policy is being passed, it's in mind, not just of the union worker, but the working class as a whole. That's what we do, to try to help, you know, the workers overall.
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.