Fast food workers demonstrate over unsafe conditions. Survey shows 79 percent burned in past year

DETROIT, MI - A half dozen police cars interrupted a peaceful protest Tuesday by dozens of fast food workers and their supporters, as law enforcement used their police cars to block the driveway of a west side McDonald’s as well as the drive-thru.

Tuesday’s demonstration by the D15 campaign, designed to call attention to 28 complaints filed against McDonald’s over worker health and safety violations, was also used to raise awareness about a pattern locally and nationally of unsafe conditions for fast food workers.

LaWanda Williamson, a 21-year-old McDonald’s worker in Detroit who earns $8.25 an hour, said when the grill at her store isn’t cleaned properly, grease can back up in the traps. That’s how she was burned. When she told a manager, she was not offered first aid, she said.

“I think they should make it safer for the workers,” said Williamson, who also witnessed a co-worker get burned when grease spilled down his leg.

Seventy-nine percent of fast-food workers in the U.S. have been burned in the past year, most repeatedly, according a survey by Hart Research and Associates released Monday by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. Workers cited understaffing and pressure to work too fast as the top reasons they are getting burned on the job.

The survey found that 36% of workers report that first aid kits are missing, inaccessible, or empty, and one-third of fast-food workers in the U.S. had been told to treat burns with condiments like mustard or mayonnaise rather than burn cream.

The 19 cities where complaints were filed include Kansas City, Mo., Miramar, Fla., Nanuet, N.Y., New York, N.Y., New Orleans, La., and Philadelphia, Penn. The announcement comes as McDonald’s faces mounting challenges domestically and abroad over working conditions, tax avoidance, and racial discrimination.

The D15 campaign is an effort by fast food workers and their supporters to garner a $15 an hour minimum wage and the right to form a union without interference.