Branford I-95 Service Plaza McDonald's Workers Strike

BRANFORD, CT — Under a hazy early morning sun, dozens of fast food workers at the Interstate 95 service plaza McDonald’s went on strike to demand hazard pay, higher wages, benefits and, the Service Employees International Union said, to protest the restaurant’s “union-busting intimidation and reprisals.”

The strike was targeting the I-95 service plaza stores run by Michell Enterprises and Goldenhawk, according to a statement by the SEIU.

Mid-morning, the workers would join others across the state to head to the State Capitol for an essential worker rally with the Recovery for All Coalition. Legislators, community groups and organizations representing workers in fast food, grocery stores, health care, and education will demand hazard pay, higher standards, and union rights for all essential workers were expected to rally.

Luis Perdono of Branford said he’s been working for the company for 15 years. Thursday, he said that while he’s striking for better wages for workers he described as essential, his concern was about benefits.

“We’ve been working here for years and have never had the opportunity to have benefits,” he said. Perdono said those benefits include sick days, health insurance, vacation days as well as a “just salary.”

The striking workers, nearly all Latino, were set to soon get on the road to Hartford.

“It’s an essential worker rally,” SEIU spokesperson Franklin Soults told Patch early Thursday morning. “A lot of essential workers are fighting for hazard pay,” he said as beginning last year at the beginning of the height of the pandemic, “many were exposed (to the coronavirus) and some got sick.” Soults said that workers are striking against “McDonald’s abuse.”

“That’s what gives them the legal right to walk out,” he said, adding that McDonald’s “brought in workers, about triple the number of workers,” to staff the service plaza restaurants.

Indeed, the McDonald’s at the I-95 service plaza was open and staffed.

The SEIU local filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of workers suffering union-busting assaults from the companies owned by George Michell and Roger Facey, which operate at various service plazas, according to a statement released by the union.

The National Labor Relations Board has taken Michell Enterprises to trial for refusing to recall workers laid off during the shutdown and it is investigating charges filed by 32BJ of firing and threatening workers for their pro-union activities. That decision is pending, the SEIU said.

Facey’s company, Goldenhawk LLC, recently settled an NLRB case of slashing workers’ hours, and now faces charges filed by 32BJ of unlawfully inducing workers not to support the union and of monitoring their pro-union activities, the SEIU said.

In a statement, the union noted that the state “has the power to demand actions by McDonald’s and all the other name-brand outlets at the service plazas, since the franchises operate on the state-owned land as subcontractors.”

All throughout the pandemic, essential workers were called heroes, but they have never received fair compensation for their heroic efforts. While Connecticut’s 14 billionaires increased their wealth by $12.6 billion over the last year, essential workers risked their lives to keep society afloat. Working mostly for low wages and benefits, essential workers deserve to be fairly compensated for their sacrifices.

“All essential workers, including 32BJ’s 5,000 Connecticut members, deserve hazard pay for their risks to themselves and their families during the COVID pandemic,” Rochelle Palache, Vice President of 32BJ SEIU said in a news release. “In addition, the essential workers at the service plazas face problems that COVID has only exacerbated, increasing the need for intervention by the Lamont administration. Over the past year, workers have suffered from union-busting reprisals and lax Covid precautions that add to the longstanding misery of low wages, lousy benefits, and biased treatment."