Rosa

“Share [my name] because I do not want others to go through what I am going through,”

Rosa, a leader with the Fight for $15 movement, has been working in the food industry for decades. From 1996 to 2017 she worked at McDonald’s for the same owner. Recovering from her stroke that she
suffered from two years ago, her boss, knowing her condition, did not let her return. Since then,
she has been struggling to support herself.

“I do not have anyone who helps me. The abandonment of my husband. I do not have support from anyone...[To support myself] I started selling used items at the Flea Market to pay for my costs and food. But right now, because of the situation [COVID-19 Pandemic] I haven’t been able to sell anything because everything is closed.“

“At McDonald’s there were a lot of problems because of the manager and the current managers. But nobody wants to say anything. No one wants to speak up. We were all in the shadows for many years. They did not want to speak up due to fear that they were going to be fired.” 

“What I want to know is what support I have, what I can do for all the years that I have been working for this man [owner of the McDonald’s that she worked at]. It is not fair that I worked for 21 years and that I am not able to receive Unemployment Insurance benefits. One cannot receive any benefits from nowhere for the reason that one doesn’t have status. What happens to us? We stay in the shadows. All of us who are McDonald workers, we are the ones who get the job done. We are always at the order doing what they tell us to do.”