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A newly established workers rights group called Warehouse Workers United last week blocked a busy intersection in an Inland Empire city to demand economic justice. Hundreds of warehouse workers, members of the clergy, and local students and supporters joined themselves to one another by handcuffs and duct tape and surrounded a fork lift they had placed on the intersection of Van Buren Boulevard and Etiwanda Avenue in Mira Loma. The intersection is used by thousands of trucks a day that transport goods and products that the warehouse workers work with, for companies like Walmart, Target, and Home Depot. One truck driver attempted to roll through the protest, leading to an altercation and arrests. The bold act of civil disobedience was the result of warehouse workers on-going frustration with meager pay, unaffordable health care, the use of temporary workers, and the denial of the right to form a union. The Inland Empire has nearly half a billion square feet of warehouses and has been particularly hard hit by the economic recession. Unemployment in the Inland Empire is at 13%, the second highest rate in the nation.

GUEST: Esther Portillo, Community Organizer with Warehouse Workers United..

For more information, visit www.warehouseworkersunited.org.