Fast-food workers plan 1-day walkout across Los Angeles

Scores of Southern California fast-food workers will walk off the job Thursday, July 13, protesting low wages, workplace violence, harassment and other unsafe conditions they say are plaguing the industry.

At a series of rallies across the city, the non-union cooks and cashiers will urge local and state lawmakers to support their fight for a stronger voice on the job. They plan to speak out against big companies such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, which they claim have spent millions of dollars to silence employees instead of investing in higher pay and safer stores across California.

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Three rallies are planned including at 11 a.m. at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 3 p.m. at a McDonald’s in East LA, and 5 p.m. at a Domino’s pizza on South Rampart Boulevard.

The action comes amid a groundswell of recent strikes and walkouts among area hotel employees, dock workers, screenwriters and healthcare personnel who are demanding higher wages and improved working conditions amid historically high inflation and housing costs.

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Low-wage fast-food workers say they’re struggling to keep pace with rising rents and mortgages.

“Some of the people I work with are on the verge of getting evicted, and others are sleeping in their cars,” said Anneisha Williams, who works the drive-through window at a Jack in the Box in Los Angeles.

Williams, who currently earns $16.54 an hour, said she was promoted to the position of shift leader but has yet to see the pay increase.

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“It wouldn’t be a lot more … 50 cents to a dollar — but people are struggling here,” she said. “I think we should be making at least $18 an hour, or even bump it up to $20 an hour.”

Employees at the McDonald’s at 3868 E. 3rd St. in East LA staged an eight-day walkout last month, claiming management was pressuring them to work while sick or recovering from serious injuries.

That came just weeks after McDonald’s employee Bertha Montes died.

In a May 31 complaint filed with the California Labor Commissioner and CalOSHA, coworkers said Montes told her manager she was sick on April 13 and needed to go home.

With “bulging red, glossy eyes,” she was forced to work for another three hours, they said. Montes died about five weeks later. Her sister informed an employee at the restaurant that Montes died as a result of thyroid problems, which affected her blood and lungs.

That incident and several others are documented in the complaint from 11 of the workers employed at McDonald’s at 3868 E. 3rd St. in East L.A.

Matthew Tulaphorn, who owns and operates the East L.A. restaurant, said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Montes’ death and promised management would investigate the allegations.

“Our top priority is always the health and well-being of our people, and we have policies in place to provide flexibility and accommodations, including sick pay, for crew members who are ill,” Tulaphorn said in a statement last month.

Workers who plan to gather at the Domino’s restaurant at 270 S Rampart Blvd. say they’ll stand in solidarity with cooks and cashiers there who claim they have endured incidents of sexual harassment and injuries due to unsafe working conditions.

In a complaint filed with Cal/OSHA in May, workers alleged their managers verbally berate them, force them to continue working through injuries and make sexually explicit comments. The franchise owner of the restaurant could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The fast-food workers have also criticized the industry’s referendum against AB 257.

Signed into law by Gov. Newsom in September, the FAST Recovery Act would create a 10-person, state-run council to negotiate wages, hours and working conditions for the more than half a million fast-food workers in California.

It would establish an initial minimum wage of up to $22 an hour, with capped annual increases thereafter at restaurants with more than 100 locations nationwide.

But Save Local Restaurants — a coalition of fast-food franchisees and franchisors who oppose the measure — gathered enough signatures to put the bill on hold and place a referendum on the 2024 ballot when voters will decide its outcome.