California fast-food workers plan statewide walkout, demand better workplace standards
Just three weeks into Carmen Guerrero’s new job at a Jack in the Box in Roseville, her 2-year-old daughter became severely ill, requiring Guerrero to take time off.
Even though Guerrero returned to work with a doctor’s note, she was not eligible for sick pay under state law because she had not worked long enough at the restaurant. Guerrero said her hours were also reduced shortly after.
“I felt I was stripped of my dignity,” Guerrero said in Spanish through a translator. “I live off my work, but if my daughter dies, I lose everything.”
Guerrero will be going on strike next week, as part of a statewide protest June 9 organized by the Service Employees International Union and its Fight for $15 and a Union campaign.
Announced Wednesday, SEIU organizers said the strikes are part of a rallying effort around Assembly Bill 257, which advocates say would create an unprecedented layer of protection for the state’s roughly 550,000 fast-food workers.
AB 257 would make California the first state to establish a Fast Food Sector Council charged with setting wages, working hours, and other health and safety standards for for the entire industry. The bill would also hold companies like Jack in the Box jointly liable for the labor law violations of their franchisees.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” SEIU president David Huerta said. “By being able to raise the standards, not just the conditions but also economically, we really create better jobs.
“These are billion dollar corporation that are making a significant amount of profit, and doing so by rigging these systems built on the backs of low-wage workers.”
The bill is up for a vote in the state Senate this summer, after passing in the Assembly in January. The Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee is expected to review and vote on the bill June 8, before it appears on the Senate floor.
Workers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego will be walking off the job at various fast-food restaurants including McDonald’s, Burger King and Jack in the Box.
Over the last year, SEIU has organized a number of strikes advocating for better working conditions, spotlighting a slew of issues vulnerable workers face, including wage theft, violence from customers, COVID-19 risk and extreme heat.
SEIU moves to unionize California fast-food workers
California’s largest labor union, SEIU was a major player in the push to raise California’s minimum wage to $15, and has worked for years toward representing workers in the fast-food industry, a notoriously difficult field to unionize. About 2% of fast food and counter workers are a member of a union, according to federal statistics compiled by unionstats.com.
Angelica Hernandez, 48, a McDonald’s worker in Monterey Park, started going on strikes with her coworkers at the start of the pandemic after her employer initially failed to provide personal protective equipment like masks and gloves to workers.
She continues to speak out in part because many of her coworkers are afraid to, fearing retaliation, Hernandez said. When her managers first heard she was joining SEIU efforts, they told her that organizing would not work.
“They even said things to the effect of, I would lose my job and end up homeless if we even tried” to unionize, Hernandez said in Spanish through a translator. After going on strike, Hernandez said her hours were cut.
“I don’t regret taking action, I would do it again,” Hernandez said. “It’s not right for McDonald’s to wash its hands of its responsibilities.”
In a statement, McDonald’s USA said that the Monterey Park location has implemented safeguards over the last few years to ensure workers are properly paid for their work, and that the company conducts routine wage and hour audits at the restaurant. Jack in the Box did not respond to requests for comment.
What fast-food franchises say
Fast-food companies and industry groups have criticized AB 257, arguing the bill unfairly targets chain restaurants because of a few bad actors, and that the state already rigorously regulates the restaurant sector.
About 80% of workers in California’s fast-food industry are people of color, and two out of three are women, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. While fast-food workers on average are younger than workers overall, 77% are over 18 years old, contrary to the myth that fast-food jobs primarily employ high school students, Huerta said.
“That might have been true 20 years ago, but you see workers with longevity in the industry, working 10, 15 years at the same place,” Huerta said. “These jobs are now the ones folks are using to try to sustain their families ... trying to make a living out of it.”
Huerta said that AB 257 wouldn’t necessarily guarantee that more fast-food restaurants unionize and that SEIU membership grows. But in the last year, major organizing efforts at Amazon and Starbucks has built momentum, Huerta said. If workers are going to be given the label of essential, “they should be paid as though they’re essential,” he said.
“When they see their conditions improving (with the passage of AB 257) and understand it’s from their collaborative effort and working in solidarity with each other, we anticipate that will lead to the next step in building their power” through unionization, Huerta said.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 10:02 AM.