Workers protest at Carl's Jr. in North Hollywood for protection from violent customers

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Carl’s Jr.workers at a North Hollywood location walked off the job Tuesday to protest allegedly unsafe working conditions.About 30 members of the California Fast Food Workers Union, along with the two striking Carl’s Jr.

workers, gathered outside of the restaurant on Vineland Avenue.Workers said the company has failed to provide protection from violent customers and doesn’t provide proper access to paid sick leave.

Workers detailed violent interactions with customers, including robberies and physical assaults, and said the company refused to provide safety training.Workers also aren’t given time to recover from injuries they suffer on the job, they said.Yolanda Cruz, a striking employee who has worked at Carl’s Jr.

for 20 years, is scared every time she clocks in for work, she said.Employees are regularly harassed by customers, the 66-year-old said.

“What else can we do? Just pray to God that how we get to work is the same way we return home at the end of the day,” Cruz said to The Times in Spanish.“This is the fear we have all the time.”One morning, when Cruz arrived at the store for an opening shift, a man jumped at her as she tried to enter the restaurant.

Angry customers also regularly throw drinks at employees, according to a complaint filed by workers to Cal/OSHA and the California Labor Commissioner’s Office.Last summer, the complaint said, a man ran into the restaurant’s kitchen, threw items at employees and threatened them with a frying pan.

The man then punched a worker in the face, according to the complaint.A doctor ordered the worker to take a week off, but the employee said that, on the fifth day, she was called in to work because no one could cover her shift, the complaint said.

Fearing retaliation from her employer, the worker clocked in to work with a black eye, her face still swollen from the attack, according to the complaint.“Ma...