Last October, as coronavirus cases began to slowly climb throughout Chicago, Kenia Campeano arrived at a brick McDonald’s 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. “They called in sick,” a shift supervisor replied.
Campeano 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—the lack of masks, the inability to social distance—were among the most common. At a McDonald’s in Radcliff, Kentucky, a worker complained that managers wore their masks “hanging from one ear” 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.
Solano-De Carrier operates 15 McDonald’s through the Solano-De Carrier Management Co., most of them in the Chicago area. When reached by phone, she declined to speak to Reveal, but she provided a written statement through McDonald’s USA. In it, she said that masks had been supplied to the store in late April and that “there have been no breaks in supply for gloves, soap or masks.” McDonald’s USA, whose corporate and franchise stores have received more than 150 complaints related to COVID-19, wrote in response to questions about workplace safety that the company had “enhanced over 50 operational and safety processes in restaurants, including requiring masks, gloves and daily wellness checks.”
That’s precisely what occurred at the McDonald’s in Chicago. On July 13, three months before Campeano contracted COVID-19, another worker at the same store, Adriana Sanchez, lodged an OSHA complaint alleging that the store wasn’t providing workers with adequate masks. By that time, Chicago had become a hub of worker complaints, with a judge issuing an injunction in June against several other McDonald’s owners, ordering them to adopt new safety measures for social distancing, training, and masks.
Through a McDonald’s USA spokesperson, Solano De-Carrier said the company asks employees to stay home when sick and is “offering paid sick leave to those impacted by the virus,” though the one week Campeano received covered only a fraction of the time she was out.
This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Get the next big story emailed directly to you. Sign up at revealnews.org/newsletter.
