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Jack In The Box workers in Folsom say managers threatened to call immigration enforcement

Workers at a Jack In The Box restaurant in Folsom say management there threatened to call immigration enforcement after the employees made complaints about wage theft, a lack of meal or rest breaks and COVID-19 safety.

The fast-food workers, who on Thursday filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, held a demonstration at noon Friday outside the Jack In The Box at 9550 Greenback Lane.

Crystal Orozco, one of the workers at the Folsom Jack In The Box, said all workers seeking a safe work environment deserve to have their grievances heard by management. She said all workers should be respected and not easily dismissed, no matter their immigration status, education or job.

“When they found out we were organizing to do the protest and fight for our rights, they went and threatened all the co-workers, saying they were going to call immigration on them,” Orozco told The Sacramento Bee.

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About 20 people, including Jack In The Box cashiers and cooks and their supporters, gathered in the restaurant parking lot with placards, small flags and a large banner chanting “Jack In The Box, pay your workers!”

Initially, the demonstrators marched through the small parking lot as customers in their vehicles lined up to enter the drive-through lane. But the demonstrators moved off the restaurant property and marched up and down the sidewalk along Madison Avenue.

A Jack In The Box district manager inside the restaurant, which straddles the Folsom-Orangevale divide, refused discuss the workers’ allegations. The manager, instead, locked the doors of the restaurant’s two public entrances while the off-duty workers protested outside.

An official at Jack In The Box’s headquarters in San Diego did not respond to an email from The Bee seeking comment on the workers’ allegations and the protest.

Orozco, of Carmichael, is a local leader in a statewide effort called Fight for $15 and a Union, a group of fast-food workers rallying to form a California council that would give them a seat at the table and the power to shape industry standards. The workers want the ability to organize for union representation, along with gaining higher pay and improved health and safety standards.

She says she used to work the graveyard at the Folsom Jack In The Box before the pandemic, and the overnight workers were never able to get a meal or a rest break with only two employees on duty. She said they didn’t receive pay for the missed meal or rest breaks.

“They’re manipulating the schedule, as well as the time sheets to show that we are taking our breaks, when, in fact, we’re not,” said Orozco, who worked at Jack In The Box restaurants for about 10 years, including four years in Folsom.

Only income for some workers

For some of the workers, the Jack In The Box job is their only source of income, Orozco said. Some workers are single parents, and the job is how they support their families.

“They will work through their breaks, because there’s no one to give it to them,” Orozco said. “ And they will take whatever they’re making them put up with, because they’re afraid to lose their jobs.”

She has spoken about their work conditions to Jack In The Box managers. She said one of those issues was a worker who was exposed to COVID-19. Orozco said the employee, who had not yet tested negative for the virus, was called by management to return to work.

Another worker was spat on by a customer during the pandemic, Orozco said, but management did not offer any of the employees a COVID-19 test to make sure none of them were exposed to the virus.

“They’re putting everyone at risk,” Orozco said. “They showed no concern about our safety and our health, nor for our families who we have to go home to afterwards.”

Maria Hernandez of Citrus Heights was one of the Jack In The Box workers protesting Friday. She has worked at the Folsom restaurant for the past five years, sometimes working at other locations when requested by management. She said managers have threatened to cut their work hours if they don’t agree to work at other locations.

“They won’t pay us for the extra hours we work. I would look at my paycheck and see it was short, they would just tell me that everything was there in the paycheck,” Hernandez said in Spanish. “Right now, it’s really hard working here, forcing us to do things we don’t want to do.”

Hernandez went on to say “They’re scaring us, they’re threatening us. And then they want us to go back to work for them and obey them.”

Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act

Friday’s workers protest in Folsom was one of more than 300 fast-food workers demonstrations in the past year organized by Fight For $15 and a union that supports California Assembly Bill 257, introduced in January by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego.

AB 257 was defeated in the Assembly in June. Gonzalez sought and was granted reconsideration of the bill, which can come back before the Legislature in January.

Also known as the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, AB 257 would make California the first state to establish a Fast Food Sector Council, setting pay and workplace standards for the entire industry.

The California Chamber of Commerce and the California Restaurant Association say the bill unfairly targeted the fast-food industry.

“The entire reason for the creation of this council is based on an unsubstantiated premise — that workers in chain restaurants have worse working conditions than other employees,” the two groups wrote in a letter to legislators.