Dozens of McDonald’s fast food employees protested around the restaurant located at 2724 Figueroa Avenue in Cypress Park, where they have allegedly been subjected to frequent violent attacks and violations of their labor rights, including being denied bathroom breaks.
“What do we want? Justice! When? Now!” shouted the noisy protesters in front of the restaurant. “If we don’t get it, shut it down!”
During the protest, they tried to force their way into the business, but were prevented from doing so by a security guard and a manager of the premises.
“You can’t come in here!” the man shouted. The protesters then took their protest around the establishment and blocked the self-service area for several minutes. Several patrol cars appeared, but the police officers only kept watch. No one was arrested.
Carlota Guzmán, Catalina Reyes and Matilde Montoya, who have a combined 39 years of experience at the McDonald’s on Figueroa Street, are part of a formal complaint of “violence” before the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CAL-OSHA).
They described being subject to frequent violent and threatening incidents on a daily basis from angry customers and people who come into the store to cause harm.
They detailed that, in an incident in May 2023, a man threatened customers with a knife and pointed the weapon at a woman who had children with her.
During that incident, Jaylene Loubet, the cashier, yelled at the managers to call the police.
“I had my hands full with the food and asked the man to give me a moment to attend to him and let him into the bathroom,” Jaylene testified in the complaint.
“When I finished my food order, I heard someone yell, ‘He has a knife! He has a knife! ’”
Management’s response was that she would have to call the police herself, but the employee did not know whether or not she was authorized to use the phones in cases of emergency.
“The managers have told us that only they can use the phones,” the worker said.
Eventually one of them called the police and when they arrived at the McDonald’s half an hour later, the gunman had already disappeared.
The threatened woman was treated by the employees, while Jaylene was blamed for the incident, “for not opening the bathroom door.”
Danger with the homeless and abuse
Following this incident of violence, the CAL-OSHA complaint alleges that management failed to provide training or increase security.
Employees were also not asked whether they were okay or not, nor were they offered trauma counseling or mental health care. Nor were they notified that they could access those services through workers’ compensation.
“There is a lot of danger when the homeless [indigentes] “They come in,” Catalina Reyes said. “They are very aggressive; they insult us and nobody does anything.”
Reyes, originally from Zapotitlán, Jalisco, said she has been working at that McDonald’s restaurant for 10 years, where her salary was recently raised to $20.00 an hour.
“For a long time the manager didn’t allow us to go to the bathroom and we had to hold it in, but now that we know our rights, we know we can go when we need to,” he stressed. “The managers should put themselves in our place, because they are also employees like us; they are not the owners and they cannot treat us that way.”
Incidents full of danger
Since the first complaint to CAL-OSHA, there have been other serious incidents of violence at the McDonald’s on Figueroa Street, where workers have been injured.
On July 24, a customer who was denied a refund for his coffee purchase threw a glass of ice at an employee, causing a bruise on her eye.
A month earlier, a man ran into the kitchen through the open back door of the business, left and returned 10 minutes later while being pursued by police and a helicopter.
The police quickly evacuated the store so they could use rubber bullets.
“This incident was terrifying and we didn’t know what to do,” said one employee who preferred not to be identified.
According to the workers, after the incident, management failed to check on employees, offer trauma counseling, or advise them on how to access mental health services.
Following this incident, the company hired security, but only at certain times of the day. McDonald’s is open 24 hours a day.
Hit on the head with a stick
On January 23, a woman carrying a wooden stick in her hand entered the fast food restaurant and demanded that Carlota Guzmán, a Veracruz mother of four, give her free food.
The employee refused and the woman tried to destroy the drinks machine with the stick and with it she hit Carlota in the head and injured her hand.
Carlota was unable to attend physical therapy recommended by a doctor because she was unaware that workers’ compensation law could provide her with income replacement.
“Sometimes they shout at us and say, ‘Hey, why don’t you wait until your break to go to the bathroom? ’ Or if something gets dirty for a moment they say, ‘Why don’t you clean up? Are you a pig? ’” Carlota told La Opinión.
“I used to bow my head, but not anymore,” she stressed. “They have to treat us with respect and justice…before they intimidated us by saying that everything that happened badly would have consequences, but now we know how to defend ourselves.”
Carlota, who suffers from diabetes and needs to stay hydrated, said that on the morning of July 19, she arrived early to work, had breakfast, and the sandwich she ate at McDonald’s upset her stomach.
Twenty minutes into his shift, he had the urge to go to the bathroom.
“I couldn’t hold it in,” he said. “I was only there for a minute.”
Upon her return, the administrator – named Yesenia – reprimanded her.
“He started yelling at me really badly. I told him I really needed to go to the bathroom… 45 minutes went by and he told me to go home. He also told me to let him know two hours in advance next time if I was going to feel sick.”
Fearing retaliation at work, Carlota said she suffered seven urinary tract infections for not using the toilet when necessary. She was afraid of being reprimanded.
McDonald’s leads California in robberies
The report, “Beatnated, Stabbed, Silenced: Violence in California’s Fast Food Industry and Workers’ Fight for a Voice,” by the organization Fight for $15, shows that between 2017 and 2020, 5,677 incidents of assault were recorded in the fast food industry, specifically in McDonald’s restaurants, and of these, 2,938 occurred in Los Angeles.
During that time, there were 643 911 calls in just nine cities, along with 1,106 incidents of property damage at McDonald’s restaurants, 6,344 cases of criminal trespassing, 23,722 cases of disturbing the peace; 57 cases of sexual assault or other sexually-related crimes; 2,582 robberies and 3,328 threats.
Dean R. Sanchez, CEO of DRS Hospitality LLC., the company representing the McDonald’s on Figueroa Street, did not respond to confirm or deny the employees’ testimonies or the alleged violation of their labor rights at his business.
Meanwhile, in the streets, workers were shouting: From north to south, from east to west, we will win this fight, whatever the cost!