Councilman Dorris: Pay warehouse workers living wages
January 20, 2010
By BOB OKON, The Joliet Herald-News
JOLIET — The city will take a close look at its warehouses and what it is paying workers.
Councilman Warren Dorris on Tuesday said the city should push distribution centers to pay a “living wage” to employees.
Dorris’ comments at a city council meeting came a day after a boycott was initiated in Joliet to protest working conditions at one area distribution center.
Dorris pointed to the city’s long-standing policy of requiring union labor in the construction of major projects, including warehouses, and said it was time to apply similar standards to the people who work at those facilities.
“They build these warehouses with union labor and then they fill them with nonunion workers who aren’t even making living wages,” he said.
“We should start requiring that they pay a living wage,” Dorris said.
Legalities of matter
City Manager Thomas Thanas said the city could do the survey of local distribution centers that Dorris wanted. But he said it was too soon to discuss whether the city could force companies to increase wages.
“I’m not sure we’re ready to start talking about the legalities of it,” he told the council.”
On Monday, a group of warehouse workers, community leaders and local clergy gathered at Sacred Heart Church in Joliet to call for a boycott of Bissell products.
The action was taken in response to the firing of 70 workers who had joined a union last year and complained about working conditions at a Bissell Homecare Inc. warehouse in Elwood.
This isn’t the first time Dorris has questioned employment practices at local warehouses.
Management of the Dollar Tree distribution center in Joliet were called to the city council two years ago to discuss hiring practices after Dorris and some local workers said employees regularly were terminated just before they could work long enough to qualify for health benefits.
Management persuaded the council then that the company tried to retain its workers.
From: The Joliet Herald-News