{"id":188144,"date":"2021-06-02T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revealnews.org\/?p=165613"},"modified":"2021-06-02T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:00:00","slug":"ppp-aid-flooded-fast-food-outlets-facing-labor-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/06\/02\/ppp-aid-flooded-fast-food-outlets-facing-labor-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"PPP aid flooded fast food outlets facing labor complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last October, as coronavirus cases began to slowly climb throughout Chicago, Kenia Campeando arrived at a brick McDonald\u2019s on the Southwest side, where the 31-year-old had worked for nearly two years as a cook. Despite the pandemic, the store did a bustling business, and this particular day felt busier than usual, with customers gathered inside and a line of cars snaking through the drive-thru. As she hustled to assemble orders, the store manager arrived, saw the backup and asked why so few employees had shown up. \u201cThey called in sick,\u201d a shift supervisor replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, there had been rumors that workers had contracted COVID-19 at the Kedzie Avenue outlet, though Campeando had never been notified that she had been exposed. Still, it wasn\u2019t hard to imagine how the virus could reach her. In the drive-thru area, she said, it wasn\u2019t uncommon for four or five workers to crowd together, and even basic supplies could run out. \u201cThere were times when we didn\u2019t have soap for two or three days, when we didn\u2019t have hand sanitizer, when we ran out of gloves, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After clocking out that day, Campeando went home and began to feel feverish. She stayed home for several days as her fever spiked and she suffered body aches and shortness of breath. Soon, a COVID-19 test came back positive. Within days, the rest of her family tested positive as well: her husband and three children, including their 5-month-old baby, along with her brother, who lived with them. While recuperating at home for three weeks, she filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, alleging that the restaurant was endangering workers\u2019 lives by failing to enforce social distancing or alert workers to possible exposure so they could quarantine, while also failing to provide masks and at times running out of soap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the complaint, filed with the help of the Service Employees International Union, Campeando wrote that she had learned that five co-workers currently had COVID-19 and that two floating workers \u2013 who moved from store to store and had worked at the Kedzie Avenue McDonald\u2019s \u2013 had died from the disease. \u201cTheir families did not even have the money to pay for a burial,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campeando was not alone. Through March of this year, more than 2,200 complaints related to COVID-19 at fast food restaurants were filed with OSHA, and her complaints \u2013 the lack of masks, the inability to social distance \u2013 were among the most common. At a McDonald\u2019s in Radcliff, Kentucky, a worker complained that managers wore their masks \u201changing from one ear\u201d and that symptomatic employees were being told to complete their shifts. At another in Goshen, Indiana, an employee complained that workers who had tested positive for COVID-19 continued to work and that the employer threatened employees who wanted to quarantine. And in El Monte, California, a worker complained that a fellow employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was told by a supervisor to continue to work in the back of the store instead of being sent home. 

Yet tens of millions of dollars in forgivable federal loans have flooded the troubled fast food industry, including more than $51 million that went to at least 110 outlets facing COVID-19 safety complaints, according to an analysis by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n