Ivette Feliciano
(VO): On a Wednesday afternoon in mid-September, a group of fast food workers from across the San Francisco Bay area
brought a list of demands to the manager of this Jack in the Box in Castro
Valley.
Workers here said they needed better Covid-19
health and safety protections.
Ingrid Vilorio: Whether
we are full time or part time, we have a right to sick days. And they should
pay us for those days. We need to be paid for having to quarantine because of
Covid-19.
VO: Two days earlier, Ingrid Viloria and two other
employees filed a joint complaint to California’s labor law enforcement
agencies.
Ingrid Vilorio: They
don’t take our temperature. They don’t give us masks.
VO: In the complaint, Vilorio
claims when she caught Covid last March she was not paid for the four shifts
she missed. California requires employers the size of hers to provide up to 80
hours of Covid-19 related paid sick leave.
Ingrid Vilorio: It’s
frustrating because you have a bad month, you’re sick and on top of that, you
don’t get paid.
VO: California employs more fast
food workers than any other state. The majority are people of color over
23. They earn some of the lowest wages in the state, an average of $13.27 an
hour.
The protest was organized by the Service Employees
International Union, or SEIU. Its Fight for 15 and a Union campaign focuses on
fast food employees and other low wage workers. Since the start of the pandemic it has led strikes and actions at more than 200
fast food restaurants across the state, including a 48-day strike at this Mcdonald’s in Oakland that began in May of 2020.
Delia Vargas works there, and
participated in the strike. She says at the start of the pandemic, her manager
provided workers with masks made of dog diapers and coffee filters.
Delia Vargas: She said the important thing is to
protect yourself. But they never talked to us about what was happening at the
store, that infections were spreading. Never.
VO: Vargas says workers were encouraged to come into
work while sick.
Delia Vargas: One person who worked the night
shift got really sick. And then her coworkers on the
night shift got infected. That’s when we realized how serious things
were.
VO: The franchise owner told local reporters that
the store was in full compliance with cod and state-level orders. And he said
all claims of workers being asked to wear coffee filters and dog diapers were
entirely false. Yet four workers filed a lawsuit in June of 2020, claiming the
owner’s quote, “dangerous...and unjustifiable...practices” unquote, had
resulted in a Covid-19 outbreak among 11 employees and a worker’s 10-month old baby.
And a report by Physicians for Social
Responsibility found infections spread throughout their communities, including
two nearby McDonald's where Vargas and other employees also work.
The owner denied all accusations in his legal
filings.
In August of 2020, the workers and the franchise
owner announced a settlement. The restaurant agreed to implement new safety and
paid sick leave policies and a management-worker committee to ensure compliance
with the new measures.
Delia Vargas: I feel proud that my coworkers and I succeeded
in getting what we asked for. And they did not fire us. But I also feel sad
when I think about the fact that we had to force them to react.
VO: As for
Ingrid Vilorio at the Jack in The Box in Castro
Valley, she says that since filing her complaint, workers have received masks
and Covid-19 related paid sick leave.
PBS NewsHour Weekend reached out for comment to
the owner of the franchise and received no reply. But it did receive a
statement from Jack in The Box Inc. the corporate office.It said the company has complied with all
federal, state, and local laws and ordinances since the beginning of the
pandemic.
Despite the recent wins for workers like Vargas
and Vilorio, the changes they fought for only apply
to the stores where they work, that’s because of how the franchise system
works.... While corporations contractually determine how their restaurants
operate, the franchise, owned as small businesses, is legally responsible for
wages and working conditions.
Workers with the fight for 15 campaign and a
union are lobbying the state’s legislature to pass a law that will change that:
The Fast Recovery Act, introduced last January.
It would make California the first state in the
country to create a fast food sector council. A
committee of fast food workers, employers and state
agencies would determine new standards for the industry.
Delia Vargas: This will help us because there
will be people like us, who know what it is like, to sit and talk with the
people who up until now have not taken us seriously.
Mary Kay Henry: I think we're going to learn that
the rules are rigged against workers
VO: Mary Kay Henry is the international SEIU
president. The union is co-sponsoring the Fast Recovery Act. With just 1% of
all US Restaurant workers being members of a union, she says collective
bargaining is a challenge in the industry.
Mary Kay Henry: Bargaining one store at a time is
not the most powerful way for those workers to have a say when the economic
decisions of their store owners are made at the multinational
headquarters.
VO: The Fast Recovery Act would hold corporations
liable for ensuring their franchises comply with health and safety standards.
And it would give franchisees the opportunity to seek compensation if
compliance with a contract contributes to breaking the law.
Mary Kay Henry: That's why the fast-recovery
at the state level is a way to help fast food workers join together and
actually have the power to bargain with the franchise owners, who could then
put pressure on the multinational corporations.
VO: Jot Condie is the CEO
of the California Restaurant Association.
Jot Condie: California
has some of the most protective laws for working people in the country, if not
the world.
VO: The trade group lobbies on behalf its 22,000
members, who he says are mostly people of color and women who own franchises
and independent restaurants in the state.
Jot Condie: We will be
the first to say that if there is any business that is engaged in anything that
is illegal that they should be held to account. And there are a myriad of
agencies and departments, commissions that are tasked with doing that.
VO: He contends the proposed act unfairly targets
the fast-food industry, and that establishing a statewide advisory council
would give an unelected body, rather than legislators, the power to establish
labor standards.
Jot Condie: They would
have the authority to repeal or amend, without any check, laws that have been
put in place by our legislature or by Cal/OSHA or by the standards board over
the last 50 years. It is an extraordinarily, almost breathtaking, abdication of
authority by the state legislature on fundamental policy matters of workplace
safety, wages, working conditions.
VO: California did pass a number
of worker protections during the pandemic, from additional paid sick days
to emergency workplace rules. Yet many low wage workers in the state were not
able to take advantage of them.
That’s according to the joint survey study “Few
Options, Many Risks”, by Alejandra Domenzain of the
Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley, and Winifred Khao, of the
civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus.
Alejandra Domenzain:
Essential workers are the ones that are keeping our economy going. They're
integral members of our society. And even in this life or
death situation, you know, we weren't able to make it a priority to
really protect them.
VO: They surveyed 636 mostly Latino and Asian
workers across several industries in California in the winter of 2020,
including restaurant, domestic work, janitorial and hospitality.
Winifred Khao: Based on those surveys, we found a
host of challenges that low-wage Asian and Latinx workers were continuing to
face during the pandemic, including the lack of information about their legal
rights and health and safety protections and requirements.
VO: A third of respondents – and 59% of restaurant
workers surveyed – were unable to physically distance most of the time at
work.
Winifred: About a fifth of those workers working
under the minimum wage were not given basic protections like masks or personal
protective equipment.
VO: Then there was the matter of their pay.
Winifred Khao: One in five workers who were
surveyed weren't even being paid the minimum wage, even as they were performing
essential work during the pandemic.
VO: And almost half of workers who expressed their
Covid concerns to their employer claimed they were either ignored or didn't
have their concerns adequately addressed. Many said they experienced
retaliation. This has led to criticism of those charged with keeping workers
safe.
Alejandra Domenzain:
Under administrations of both parties our labor law enforcement agencies have
been chronically underfunded, understaffed to the point where they're really not effective. It is not a credible threat to employers
that someone will come and inspect them and cite them for their violations.
VO: California's Division of Occupational Health and
Safety, or Cal/OSHA, told us in an email that it currently has a 17% vacancy
rate for inspectors it is working to fill.
And it said quote, “Cal/OSHA fulfills its
enforcement mission by conducting targeted inspections... When safety
violations are found, cal/osha issues citations with
a monetary penalty that requires hazards be abated.”
Mary kay henry of the SEIU says the Fast Recovery
Act would ensure cal/osha works together with
employers and workers to make long needed changes in the fast
food industry.
Mary Kay Henry: I think we are going to see other
legislative efforts like this fast food bill in
California spread to other states. Workers have had it. They're joining
together in record numbers and are going to create the pressure that forces a
national solution for fast workers.
VO: The bill, which failed to pass the assembly by
three votes in June, will be up for reconsideration in January.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER THIRD |
1 |
00:22 |
INGRID VILORIO FAST FOOD
WORKER |
2 |
03:23 |
DELIA VARGAS FAST FOOD
WORKER |
3 |
05:23 |
MARY KAY HENRY SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION |
4 |
06:59 |
JOT CONDIE CALIFORNIA
RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION |
5 |
8:28 |
WINIFRED KHAO ASIAN AMERICANS
ADVANCING JUSTICE-ASIAN LAW CAUCUS |
6 |
9:27 |
ALEJANDRA
DOMENZAIN LABOR
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA |
7 |
10:23 |
MARY KAY HENRY SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION |