Fast food workers to stage rallies across San Jose over low pay, other issues

Posted: Aug 2, 2023 / 05:50 AM PDT

Updated: Aug 2, 2023 / 06:22 PM PDT

(BCN) — Fast food workers are planning strike lines at several locations across San Jose on Wednesday to demand government action on low pay as well as alleged issues of wage theft, violence, harassment and unsafe working conditions, according to the labor advocacy group Fight for $15 and a Union.

Rallies are set to be held on Wednesday at Carl’s Jr. at 1346 Saratoga Ave. at 10:30 a.m., at San Jose City Hall at noon, and at KFC at 552 E. Santa Clara St. at 1 p.m.

Striking workers are expected to be joined by City Councilmembers Rosemary Kamei, Omar Torres and Peter Ortiz, as well as Bay Area labor leaders and local allies.

According to Fight for $15, San Jose fast food workers are urging local and state lawmakers to support their fight to find industry-wide solutions to issues such as wage theft and unsafe working conditions, while also calling out fast food corporations for allegedly silencing workers’ complaints.

“No fast-food worker, in San Jose or anywhere in California, should have to go to work every day fearing violence, harassment, heat exhaustion and more — all while being paid low wages that keep us teetering on the edge of losing everything,” Ingrid Vilorio, a Jack in the Box worker and leader in Fight for $15, said in a statement.

“We need our leaders in San Jose to step up and support us in solving these problems, especially as the global fast-food corporations we work for spend millions to silence our voices,” Vilorio added.

Among the striking workers’ demands are for California lawmakers to pass AB 1228, the Fast Food Corporate Franchisor Responsibility Act, which would hold corporations like McDonald’s accountable when franchise stores violate labor laws at the expense of workers’ health and well-being.

In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 257, the FAST Recovery Act, into law, forming a statewide Fast Food Council in order to better represent fast food workers in government.

The state’s fast food workers, estimated to number more than half a million, are nearly 80 percent people of color, more than 60 percent are Latino and two-thirds are women, according to Fight for $15 data.