A version of this story first appeared on Berkeleyside’s sister site, The Oaklandside.
Fast food workers gathered in the parking lot of a McDonald’s on E. 12th Street in Fruitvale Tuesday to protest what they say are unfair wages and poor working conditions.
Employees from the restaurant — nearly all of whom are Hispanic women — along with workers from other fast food chains with locations in Oakland and the East Bay, utilized a flatbed truck as a makeshift platform to speak from, sharing their stories of working through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In this pandemic, we have seen just how far corporations have gone just to make a profit,” Maria Sabina, a McDonald’s employee, said in Spanish to the crowd. Sabina contracted COVID-19 more than once over the past year. She believes she got sick because her employer wouldn’t allow her and other staff time off. “This was terrifying for me because I live in a studio with my daughter and son that is part of another house,” she said.