[...] While there are thousands of union members in the region, its labor movement lacks the cohesion and power that exists in Los Angeles. Warehousing exploded in the early 2000s, thriving in a region hungry for jobs, loose with development subsidies, and low on regulation. Many of the 100,000 workers in the 300-plus warehouses in the Inland Empire have consistent, regular, decent-paying jobs. But others, perhaps 30 percent, move from job to job, with little or no permanent employment relationship. These workers are employed through staffing agencies, paid the minimum wage or slightly above. They are provided with no benefits, and consistently have to fight to keep their employment. The use of these staffing agencies was originally justified by the industry to account for the ups and downs of goods movement, but their presence now functions to create a permanent underclass in the sector - a pool of hungry temps willing to do any job offered, and a credible threat to undercut the conditions of the directly employed.