The brutal reality of fast-food work behind Trump’s McDonald’s moment

On October 20, Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump held a photo shoot at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania– a key battleground state where both he and his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, are trying to win over voters in the final weeks before Election Day on November 5. Trump appeared to be making fries and serving customers coming through the drive-thru window.

“It’s fun, I could do this all day.” Trump said after giving a bag to a customer. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

There are approx 3.6 million fast food workers in the US., who earn an average of $30,110 per year. Many took to social media to express their frustration that Trump has gambled away the work of millions of Americans.

Trump answered questions from the media through the drive-thru window, though he did not say whether he would support raising the federal minimum wage when asked. On Tuesday, Harris said for the first time that he would support raising the minimum wage to $15.

According to HuffPostHarris also said he supported a $15 federal minimum wage during his 2020 presidential campaign.

“At least $15 an hour, but we’re going to work with Congress, right? It’s something that goes through Congress,” Harris said.

According to the US Department of Labor, the federal minimum wage it has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

That Reckon reports earlier this week, myths about who owns fast-food jobs depicted the industry as an after-school job held by part-time teenagers. However, the data published by National Labor Law Project reveals that 70% of fast food workers are 20 years of age or older, and in 2021, less than a third were between 16 and 19.

Employees say their jobs require more than “flipping burgers,” but instead have to balance multiple tasks and provide customer service, often for little pay, while managing. poor working conditions and operate in understaffed locations.

“Why do so many people choose to put up with this? Because some choices aren’t really choices, Emily Guendelsbergerjournalist and former fast food employee, wrote in Vox in 2019. “In my experience, most people are willing to make huge sacrifices to keep their children safe and happy. In a country with a mothballed social safety net, employment-linked healthcare and little difference in job quality between working at McDonald’s, Burger King or Walmart, corporations have long realized that workers will put up with almost anything if it means keeping their jobs.”

A 2023 California nonprofit report Economic round table found that the fast-food industry had the highest proportion of workers living in poverty, which researchers found was driven by low wages and difficulty obtaining full-time hours. In California alone, 1 in 17 homeless people work in fast food, according to the report.

Cyann Petersen22, is a Sonic drive-in server in Oklahoma who makes $7.75 an hour. She usually works 36 hours a week, although her hours were recently reduced after she took two weeks off for emergency surgery. Since then, she has only been scheduled 16 hours a week.

“I went from 36 hours a week to 16 hours a week and that being on my paycheck, it doesn’t pay enough. Not really. There was no way. I have stepchildren and they (managers) still didn’t understand what was going on,” she told Reckon.

Petersen’s daily duties consist of preparing orders, taking payment and delivering food to customers. Although her position includes advice, she says it’s not much.

“If it’s on a coupon day or a promotion day, I get $9 max that day,” she said. Petersen said she understands customers are trying to save money and may not have extra money to give, but the situation is setting her back financially.

“I can’t survive on this. I really can’t,” she said.

Physical and emotional abuse at work

The growth of “Karen“The stereotype has become a household meme, depicting (usually) white, middle-aged women displaying entitlement and often racism in fits of rage. These viral videos have gained popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemicand often describe verbally and sometimes

But Karen-like behavior is more than just a meme, with fast-food workers facing outbursts from customers in the real world. A 2021 study by Black Box Intelligence, a restaurant industry analysis firm, found that 60% of restaurant employees have suffered from emotional abuse and disrespect from customers that year, and 78% reported it affected their mental health.

In November 2021, McDonald’s workers in California hosted a walkout against unsafe working conditions. Jasmina Alfaro, who worked at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles, said the Los Angeles Daily News about the violence they face at work.

“We’ve been robbed at gunpoint, beaten, bitten and threatened just for trying to do our jobs,” Alfaro said. “It was only after we staged a protest at our store that the management offered a security solution. But that is not enough.”

Petersen said her co-worker, a minor, recently had to press charges against a male client who harassed her.

“It’s not common that we have the odd one, but maybe once every two months,” she said, adding that everyone in the industry has faced similar situations.

She told Reckon that she urges people to be kind to employees because “you never know what they’re going through.”

“A few times a customer has apologized to me for being rude because of ‘kill them with a good attitude’ and I always forgive them because we all have our days and I totally understand that,” Petersen said. “Most don’t (apologize) these days, which makes the job even more miserable.”

Unions, Protests and Legal Protection for Fast Food Workers

As reports of workplace violence and wage theft mounted, fast-food workers began organizing for change. Their efforts have resulted in significant victories, particularly in California, where new laws are reshaping the industry.

The increase in violence against employees has prompted a movement to bring in legal protections to ensure their safety, with California at the epicenter of this fight.

During the pandemic, fast-food workers in Los Angeles County were more at risk of contracting COVID-19, faced increased hardship in working conditions and did not receive the protections they were entitled to, according to a report from 2022 of the European Commission. UCLA Job Center.

Half of the fast food workers surveyed in the report said they had experienced verbal abuse, with a third reporting that they had faced threats, racial slurs or assaults. In addition, nearly two-thirds of employees have experienced wage theft and more than half have experienced health and safety hazards at work, with 43% being injured. Wage theft occurs when employers withhold earnings, such as compensation or breaks.

“Fast food workers have been showing up every day of the COVID-19 pandemic, risking our lives to keep our stores open and communities fed,” Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s employee in Los Angeles, told UCLA. “The companies we work for have called us essential, but this report shows they believe we are disposable and have decided keeping us in unsafe and unsanitary conditions is worth it for greater corporate profits.”

In response to years of unfair conditions, the industry began to unionize. In February, Fast-food workers in California have launched a minority union, the first of its kind representing hundreds of McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr. and Subway employees. The California Fast Food Workers Union lists its goals as raising the minimum wage by 3.5 percent over the next three years and establishing rules to ensure workers are scheduled enough hours to support themselves.

In September 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour and created a Fast Food Council for workers to have a voice in setting policies on working conditions and health and safety standards.

A year later, the governor’s office reported that there were more fast-food jobs in the state than ever before, including 11,000 new jobs created in the four months after he signed the bill into law.

“What’s good for workers is good for business, and as California’s fast food industry continues to grow each month, our workers are finally getting the pay they deserve. Despite those who peddled lies about how this would doom the industry, California’s economy and workers are proving them wrong again,” Newsom said in a statement from August 2024.

Opposition to the raise warned that the wage increase would trickle down to customers.

“Every day you see headlines about restaurant closings, job losses and reduced employee hours, and rising food prices for consumers,” a spokesperson for the International Franchise Association he told the socialist magazine Jacobin a few months after it came into force.

A report of Harvard University Published October 9 found that California’s minimum wage increase had no unintended consequences on staffing, scheduling, or wage theft, and Center for Wage and Employment Dynamics at UC Berkeley found that menu prices rose by just 3% to 7%, the equivalent of 15 cents for a $4 burger.

Starbucks employees also fought to unionize across the country. According to its website, Starbucks Workers United now represents 500 stores and more than 10,500 employees from its first store, a location in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize in 2021.

According to CNBCthe most recent unionized store, a location in Bellingham, Washington, recently sent a letter to the company’s new CEO, Brian Niccolexplaining his reason for organizing.

“The ultimate success of Starbucks in the rebuild depends on whether we, as baristas, have the support we need to do our jobs well, so that in turn we ensure that customers enjoy the Starbucks experience and come back to continuation.” they wrote.