A viral spread<\/strong><\/p>After the May outbreak at Oakland\u2019s Telegraph Avenue outlet, the coronavirus moved to another McDonald\u2019s outlet three miles away in Berkeley, near the University of California campus.<\/p>
According to complaints that the store owner called false, a manager who had worked while ill at the Oakland store also had pulled shifts in Berkeley. There, she confided that she was in pain and needed medication for a fever, complaints claim. <\/p>
Soon, workers in Berkeley learned the manager had tested positive. For a time, they said, workers received temperature screenings, but the practice was abandoned when the thermometer broke.<\/p>
Employees who had worked alongside the ill manager \u2013 even those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or awaiting test results \u2013 were pressured to stay on the job, according to complaints.<\/p>
By the end of June, more than 20 Berkeley workers and family members were ill with COVID-19.<\/p>
The baby was \u201cterribly sick and losing weight,\u201d wrote the child\u2019s aunt, Jennifer Escobar, who also worked at the store and tested positive. \u201cI am in shock that this is happening to my family.\u201d<\/p>
Among the ill: two workers who, like the manager, had been pulling shifts at both stores.<\/p>
Meanwhile, a worker from the Oakland store on Telegraph also was covering shifts at a McDonald\u2019s 15 miles away in the city of San Pablo. Although that worker never tested positive, the coronavirus whipped through that outlet as well: Three employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to complaints, and eight others were symptomatic.<\/p>
By summer, the coronavirus had broken out at two other McDonald\u2019s outlets in Oakland and a third one 15 miles south in the city of Hayward.<\/p>
The coronavirus also appeared at an outlet in El Cerrito, six miles from the Berkeley store and owned by the same company. Employee Daniela Rodriguez said in a complaint that the El Cerrito store was short-staffed because one employee had tested positive and seven others were afraid to come to work.<\/p>
On a weekend in June, a Berkeley manager sent a text to all scheduled workers ordering them, on penalty of discipline or termination, to report to the El Cerrito store instead. The text didn\u2019t mention COVID-19. According to SEIU, two workers who said they reported to El Cerrito later tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>
The workers\u2019 claims are false, said Larry Kamer, spokesperson for store owner Pavilions Management. In an email, he wrote that the Berkeley health department had inspected the store and taken no action. The company\u2019s \u201ccareful, consistent, and effective actions\u201d had kept customers and workers safe during the pandemic, he wrote.<\/p>
Similar multistore outbreaks occurred at McDonald\u2019s outlets in Los Angeles and on Hawaii\u2019s Big Island.<\/p>
In Los Angeles, an outbreak that began in June at a McDonald\u2019s on Marengo Street in Boyle Heights flared across five stores owned by the same company, according to workers\u2019 complaints. More than 20 employees and family members were infected, according to the complainants, who blamed the company\u2019s practice of moving workers among stores when COVID-19 broke out \u2013 a claim the owner, R&B Sanchez, disputes.<\/p>
\u201cI am writing because five members of my family got sick with COVID-19 and I believe we got sick from working at McDonald\u2019s,\u201d Marengo Street worker Magali Martinez wrote July 22. She said she was among \u201cfive or six\u201d workers at the outlet ill with COVID-19. Her two children also had COVID-19, as did her sister-in-law and mother-in-law, who she said got sick working at an outlet a mile away on North Broadway.<\/p>
\u201cCOVID-19 may be spreading among several of sixteen stores with the same owner, as workers were sent from one store to another to clean and work where there were COVID-19 outbreaks,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>
The Big Island outbreak unfolded in the Kona resort district in April. There, 32 people fell ill as the coronavirus broke out in three outlets with the same owner. At a news conference, the state\u2019s health director, Bruce Anderson, absolved the outlets\u2019 owner of responsibility, saying the stores \u201cdid everything right.\u201d <\/p>
But records released by the state Health Department indicate that one of the stores was providing little protection to employees. An inspector who visited soon after the outbreak wrote that \u201cno employees were observed wearing masks,\u201d noting that workers had been \u201cencouraged but not required\u201d to buy their own masks and gloves. <\/p>
Injunctions in Oakland and Chicago<\/strong><\/p>In May, workers backed by SEIU sued<\/a> McDonald\u2019s in Chicago, claiming the risk of COVID-19 was so great that four outlets in the city should be declared public nuisances. The lawsuit accused operators of violating a state safety order by failing to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing and by not informing workers about COVID-19 outbreaks in the workplace.<\/p>At a store on West Cermak Road, employee Maria Sanchez de Villase\u00f1or said that in April, a maskless colleague was sneezing onto food and into his ungloved hands. The manager didn\u2019t intervene, she wrote in a complaint. Other workers described shortages of masks and gloves. <\/p>
\u201cThe whole idea of seeking a preliminary injunction was to avoid an outbreak,\u201d said attorney Ryan Griffin, who represents the plaintiffs.<\/p>
The company and franchisees denied wrongdoing. Outlets had access to protective gear, McDonald\u2019s said, and McDonald\u2019s required outlets to comply with state safety orders.<\/p>
In June, Circuit Court Judge Eve Reilly found that at three stores, company policies \u201care failing to be properly implemented.\u201d She ordered McDonald\u2019s of Illinois and a franchisee to impose social distancing and enforce the wearing of masks.<\/p>
The coronavirus continued to flare in Chicago stores. On Nov. 1, a worker at a South Side outlet filed a complaint familiar from the earliest days of the pandemic. The store was failing to provide workers with proper masks, Kenia Campeando wrote to OSHA. She said she and five other workers were infected, as were her husband and three children.<\/p>