Battles erupt over warehouse jobs as the Legislature moves to curb subsidies
Hundreds of residents packed a church hall in San Bernardino a few weeks ago to hear community leaders rail against a huge new logistics center planned for the town's airport.
The $200-million air cargo facility, the size of 11 football fields, could eventually generate some 3,800 jobs, garnering $6.5 million a year in revenue for the publicly owned airport on the site of the long-shuttered Norton Air Force base. But what kind of jobs, residents wanted to know: Low-paid part-time jobs with no benefits? Jobs likely to be replaced by robots?
What about the pollution from 1,568 diesel-fueled truck trips a day and 26 daily cargo plane flights, which would blanket low-income neighborhoods already choked with toxic fumes?
And, by the way, why won't officials reveal the name of the employer, rumored to be Amazon.com?
A spectacular boom in warehouses and distribution centers moving in over the past decade helped lift the vast Inland Empire region out of the Great Recession, bringing an estimated 84,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of the region's added employment. Amazon built 14 giant fulfillment centers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, becoming the area's largest employer.
