Study: 85% of California fast-food workers say they’ve been denied meal breaks, forced to work off-the-clock
When Alicia Lara picked up a second job and started working at the Jack in the Box in North Highlands in 2018, she regularly found herself forced to work through legally mandated breaks.
“When I needed a break I’d go to the manager but they wouldn’t give me any of my paid breaks,” Lara said through a translator. “We were understaffed, so we had to keep working.”
It’s a form of wage theft, experienced by thousands of low-paid workers in the state’s fast-food industry, according to a new survey released last week by the Service Employees International Union.
At least 85% of workers surveyed said their employer had failed to pay them what they were owed through at least one form of wage theft.
More than half of survey respondents said they had been shorted by more than one form of wage theft — such as failing to pay overtime, paying less than the minimum wage, asking workers to work off-theclock, and denying rest and meal breaks, among others.
The findings suggest that about 425,000 fast-food workers in California are not being paid what they are owed.
Lara ultimately received about $3,000 in back pay, following a series of worker strikes at the restaurant last summer. Initially protesting the lack of functioning air conditioners, Lara and her coworkers later walked out during the lunch rush to demand more than $184,000 in wages they said they were underpaid.
The SEIU survey, which interviewed more than 410 fast-food workers in 86 cities, was conducted between January and March. Workers represented more 44 different brands, including McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr., Burger King, Subway, KFC, Taco Bell and Jack in the Box.
The union is co-sponsoring a bill, known as the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, that leaders say would help address flagrant labor violations in the industry.
Assembly Bill 257 would make California the first state to establish a Fast Food Sector Council, setting pay and workplace standards, and holding large corporations liable when franchisees break labor laws.
Fast-food industry groups, including the California Restaurant Association and the International Franchise Association, have opposed the bill, arguing it would unfairly target chain restaurants and raise consumer prices.
Jeff Hanscom, vice president of state and local government relations at the International Franchise Association, said in a statement that California has “one of the most rigorously regulated restaurant sectors in the world.” The state should be focused, then, on enforcing existing laws to address “bad actors.”
“While the issues experienced by these 410 employees should not be discounted, this survey is only representative of less than .0008% of the 500,000 quick service restaurant employees in California,” Hanscom said in a statement.