Warehouses under fire
Alleged mistreatment of workers investigated by group, will county officials
By CINDY WOJDYLA CAIN
Naperville Sun
JOLIET — Warehouse Workers for Justice, a group that has come to fight for worker rights in Will County, says some warehouse workers aren’t being paid fair wages and their working conditions violate state and federal labor laws.
But it’s not clear how widespread the problem is.
“We don’t know,” said John Greuling, CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development, a group that has touted growth in the logistics industry, including warehouses, in recent years.
“Some of it is anecdotal, some of it these interest groups put together,” Greuling said of the complaints.
And it isn’t clear if the workers are being treated unfairly or illegally, he added.
“I think there’s a fine line there,” he said.
Even so, Greuling said he’s concerned enough about the charges of worker mistreatment to investigate the issue.
“If they are breaking the labor laws, they have to be punished,” he said of the companies that staff and operate area warehouses. ” … If there are things that are not being done properly by these operators let’s expose it.”
‘We are concerned’
Greuling and elected officials from Will County have asked for a meeting with state labor department officials and union representatives to explore the concerns raised in recent months by Chicago-based WWJ.
“We are concerned,” said state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi. “That’s why we’re going to bring in the director of the Department of Labor.”
Wilhelmi, D-Joliet, said businesses that own and operate warehouses will be invited to the meeting, which could take place as soon as mid-April. Also, area ministers, including the Revs. Herbert Brooks and Raymond Lescher, will attend.
“We’re going to come together and figure out exactly how we can get to the bottom of it, understand exactly what is going on there and how we can find a creative solution,” Wilhelmi said.
Greuling said warehouse operators may be more likely to treat employees fairly if they know the labor department is looking at their operations.
And that may be what it takes to make sure alleged abuses stop, he added, because workers are often afraid to complain.
“There are probably people who are concerned about coming out and saying anything for fear of retribution, primarily losing the job that they have.”
Different models
Greuling said the warehouse industry in Will County has many types of staffing models. Some companies hire their own employees directly. That’s the case with DollarTree in Joliet.
A second model is illustrated by BMW in Grundy County. It hired Manpower, a temp agency, to staff its warehouse. But rather than just rotate in a pool of temp workers, Manpower is hiring full-time employees to work at the warehouse, Greuling explained.
Finally, there are companies that turn their buildings over to what is known in the industry as 3PL or third-party logistics companies that run the warehouse. Walmart and Bissell in Elwood are examples of that staffing model. The 3PLs sign contracts with temp agencies to staff varying portions of the workforce with temps.
WWJ has targeted the Walmart and Bissell situations because they say the staffing agencies are not treating the workers fairly.
Neither Walmart nor Bissell received tax abatement incentives to locate in Elwood, Greuling said. Also, when the CED surveys a business to see if qualifies for a tax abatement, “We don’t count temporary jobs,” Greuling said. “They don’t get credit for that.”
It’s all economics
Angelo Ippolito owns a temp agency called Pridestaff in Joliet. He also is chairman of the Will County Center for Economic Development’s Logistics Council. He said many big companies hire third-party logistics providers to run and staff their warehouses. The companies aren’t in the business of running warehouses, so they contract with someone who is, he explained.
The 3PL companies contract with temp agencies to staff the warehouses so employees can be cut when business is slow or added when it’s busy, Ippolito said.
“It’s all based on economics,” he said. “Temp labor is a way to smooth over the highs and lows of the business.”
Greuling agreed. He cited the Hickory Farms warehouse in the Cherry Hill Business Park.
“Year-round their base full-time employment is 150 jobs,” he said. “But from July to December, they probably go up to 400 or 500 jobs. They’re temporary but they’re working full-time hours.”
Some workers prefer the temp arrangement because of family or other considerations, Greuling added.
“It’s not like these people are being forced into slavery of some sort,” he said. “I think there is a good part of these workers that take these temporary jobs. They see it as a very positive thing.”
Also, the temp arrangement allows the employee and the company to “try each other out,” Ippolito said.
The use of temp agencies by warehouse-managing companies has increased a lot since Ippolito opened his Pridestaff franchise.
“And it’s very competitive between temp companies,” he said.
Ippolito said some of the problems area warehouses are having are no different than other similar businesses encounter.
“You go to work in a manufacturing place and you can come across the same problems,” he said. “By and large, these (warehouses) have to be good or they’d be out of business. The places I know, overall, they care about their employees and they value their employees.”