Durham McDonald’s workers strike after COVID-19 case. ‘We can’t survive on $7.25.’

Dozens of McDonald’s and other fast-food workers in Durham went on strike Thursday after a restaurant employee from the 5277 N. Roxboro Road location tested positive for COVID-19.

Striking workers gathered with supporters at another McDonald’s, this one located at 2010 N. Roxboro Road, to demand that the restaurant chain protect workers from exposure to COVID-19 and pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour. Workers announced the one-day strike Thursday morning, and the restaurants remained open through the day.

A caravan of over thirty cars circled the fast-food restaurant for nearly an hour, with demonstrators honking and cheering. The cars were decorated with banners that read “$15” and had signs for NC Raise Up, the local Fight For $15 chapter that organized the protest.

About a dozen workers stood outside the restaurant chanting, “We work, we sweat, for $15 on our check” and a call and response, “We can’t survive on $7.25.”

McDonald’s workers told The News & Observer that management did not notify them or do a professional deep clean after learning that an employee had tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday. Instead, they said McDonald’s transferred a worker from another store location to fill in at the contaminated store, without telling that worker about the positive test.

Monteigo Wilson, a shift manager at the 5277 N. Roxboro Road McDonald’s, told the N&O he heard of a second coronavirus case, this one involving an employee from the McDonald’s where they were protesting.

In response to emailed questions from The N&O, McDonald’s franchise owners Linda and Charles Reid, who own both North Roxboro Road locations, confirmed through a spokesperson that one employee at each of the two restaurants had tested positive for COVID-19. The email also said they had alerted local public health authorities. They said the restaurants were “promptly closed to endure a thorough sanitization procedure,” but confirmed the sanitization had been done by McDonald’s employees.

The Reids said they reached out to any employees who came within 6 feet of the infected employee for 10 minutes or more and ask them to “self-quarantine to ensure they remain healthy before returning to work.” They declined to share how many employees had been asked to quarantine.

In their statement, the Reids did not respond to the workers’ claim that an employee had been transferred to the location where the worker had tested positive.

Did McDonald’s inform workers of coronavirus case?

Wilson told The News & Observer that he learned about the first positive coronavirus test from another manager on Sunday. Wilson said store management never alerted workers and as far as he knew, didn’t do a professional deep-clean.

Wilson said he sanitized the area where the employee had been. Wilson also said the worker from that McDonald’s confirmed in a phone call that they had tested positive for the virus.

“I feel like I was left out there stranded because I didn’t know, I didn’t hear no word, and I basically had to do my own investigation to see if there was a case or not,” said Wilson, whose been working at McDonald’s for two years.

There is no federal or state rule requiring employers to notify employees of positive tests, but guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that employers should inform employees who may have been exposed to the virus.

Workers demand $15 minimum wage

As a full-time worker, Wilson makes $11.25 an hour, which he said is especially difficult during the pandemic.

“I’ve been barely making it, I’ve had to do side jobs like yard work and handyman work, but with this epidemic going on it makes it harder to do those jobs, because everyone’s cautious,” he said.

McDonald’s has the third-highest number of employees who receive SNAP benefits out of all North Carolina employers, according to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

“We are out here struggling to make ends meet with little $8, $9 jobs,” shouted Precious Cole, a worker at Wendy’s, into the megaphone outside the McDonald’s. “$15 an hour is what we need. We need it. For the survival of this country we need this $15 an hour, and I’m tired of asking.”

McDonald’s workers served a strike notice to management Thursday demanding the $15 per hour minimum wage, plus the demand that management “enforce masks and social distancing, inform employees when there are COVID-19 cases in the store, deep clean the store after learning of any COVID-19 cases, inform those who have been in close contact with others who tested positive for COVID-19, and provide workers paid sick leave if they test positive for COVID-19.”

“Once the COVID case was discovered, they should have shut the whole store down and sent everybody home, and had an immediate clean-up crew to come in and clean the store thoroughly,” Antione Williams, 16 and another striking McDonald’s worker, said. “(McDonald’s) hasn’t been serious about (COVID-19).”

Fast-food workers face high COVID-19 risk

Workers at several fast-food chains in the Triangle have made demands for additional protections during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers at Freddy’s and Bojangles’ walked off the job in the fall after learning employees had tested positive, The News & Observer previously reported. Workers demanded that management do a professional deep cleaning of the store and provide workers with two weeks paid leave to self-quarantine and $15 per hour hazard pay.

Freddy’s granted 10 days of paid sick leave to workers who test positive for COVID-19 following the strike, and told The N&O that the store had undergone a deep clean. But the other demands were not met. Bojangles’ also told The N&O that there had been a deep clean after the employee tested positive, but did not meet the other demands.

In September, more than 120 groups representing food workers in fast-food, farm workers and grocery store workers called on Gov. Roy Cooper and other state officials to protect workers.

“North Carolina frontline food workers face enormous risks and uncertainty on a daily basis, while employers are not required to meet the most basic public health guidelines,” the groups wrote in a letter. “Since employer notification of workplace COVID-19 cases to their workforce is inconsistent, and workplace training on symptoms, transmission, and protection from retaliation is not required, many frontline workers do not have vital information to determine their level of risk and are disincentivized to self-report symptoms.”

Neither the governor nor any state agency has instated protections to address these concerns.

This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 7:52 PM.