Hundreds of fast-food workers met in Los Angeles on Friday to kick off the launch of the California Fast Food Workers Union, a statewide union aimed at organizing cooks and cashiers at fast-food companies across the state.

The new union comes in the wake of a victory at the end of 2023 to boost pay for California’s more than 500,000-strong fast-food workforce to $20 an hour.

Fast-food workers with the Service Employees International Union’s Fight for $15 and a Union movement led a legislative effort to get a bill passed in California to raise minimum wages for workers in the fast-food industry and create a fast-food sector council with worker representation in September 2022.

The fast-food industry responded by blocking the measure from going into effect by gathering signatures for a 2024 ballot initiative to repeal the law. A settlement was reached between labor and industry groups in September 2023 to avoid what was anticipated to be a very expensive, hotly contested ballot measure in November 2024.

The settlement included raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers at chains with more than 60 locations to $20 an hour in California, which is set to go into effect on 1 April this year.

The formation of the California Fast Food Workers Union is the next step for the Fight for $15 movement in the state, after more than a decade of efforts and hundreds of strikes aimed at raising wages and improving conditions for workers in the fast-food industry.

“These efforts have been led in California over the last decade by primarily Black and Latino cooks and cashiers who have been fighting and have been able to show when they come together what kind of power they can have to really take on massive corporations like Starbucks, McDonald’s and Burger King, which have done everything to crush their workers and crush the idea of them pulling together a union,” said Joseph Bryant, international executive vice-president of the Service Employees International Union.

In California, over 80% of fast-food workers are people of color and two-thirds are women. In recent years, workers at fast-food chains throughout the state have held strikes in response to poor workplace conditions including excessive heat exposure in the workplace, sexual harassment and retaliation against workers, child labor violations, and wage theft.

“I’m very proud to say that we’re going to have a union. This is like a dream come true for me to be able to say this,” said Angelica Hernandez, who has worked at McDonald’s for 19 years in Los Angeles, California. “McDonald’s and other brands like Carl’s Jr, Chipotle – they have to listen to us. They’ve been making millions and millions of dollars in profits, and they want to keep their employees working at minimum wage.”

Hernandez said she herself had been a victim of wage theft and sexual harassment in her workplace, had faced issues including working with and around broken equipment, and had had to do the work of two to three people due to short staffing.

“It’s very important for us to have a union, so we have some kind of support, so we have backup,” added Hernandez. “So we have dignity in the workplace and so workers coming into the industry don’t have to face all of the issues we’ve encountered.”

July Monroe, who has worked at McDonald’s for more than 10 years in Los Angeles, said she had experienced poor working conditions such as working without adequate air conditioning in the summer, and experiencing sporadic work hour cuts.

“If you go to the Burger King and get a combo meal, you don’t know what’s going on with the people who are taking your order. It doesn’t matter, they have to smile for you, even if they aren’t getting their breaks,” said Monroe. “We deserve more than $20 an hour. We employees do the work of three people while the boss is getting the salary of several people.”

Monroe argued the opposition to the Fight for $15 movement and legislative efforts from the fast-food industry and wealthy corporations were indicative of the power workers have in joining together, learning their rights at work, and speaking up to enforce them so abuses against workers aren’t left unchallenged and allowed to perpetuate as standards in the industry.

“They’re starting to get scared of us because we’re learning our rights and we’re valuing ourselves,” added Monroe. “We don’t have to be afraid to have a seat at the table.”