California Fast Food Workers Union
MEDIA ADVISORY FOR: October 23, 2026
Contact: shwetha.ganesh@berlinrosen.com
In new lawsuit, workers report crushing bank fees, late payment penalties, interest and consumer debt due to withheld wages
Lawsuit alleges managers threaten retaliation if workers complain
ALAMEDA, Calif. — Cooks and cashiers at Jack in the Box in Alameda will go on strike on Friday to protest wage theft and threats of retaliation after management failed to pay workers on time and issued checks from an account with insufficient funds. Jack in the Box workers — who are already struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living in the Bay Area — are facing cascading financial and personal consequences as a result of going days without their paychecks.
With support from Legal Aid at Work, workers filed a lawsuit against Jack in the Box and the store’s operator, Gul Food Management, describing a pattern of behavior in which workers’ pay checks were consistently late or drawn from accounts with insufficient funds. According to the lawsuit, store managers retaliated against workers who spoke up about the problem and never compensated workers for the costs associated with the late payments and bounced checks. Gul Food Management has also failed to solve the problem after workers at several restaurants took action earlier this year, including staging previous strikes and refusing to work without assurances of pay.
“If the money left over isn’t enough to cover the payroll, it is minimum-wage workers…who are left holding the bag. In effect, the costs of financing Gul Food Management’s payroll is shifted onto the parties least able to bear them: the workers that serve customers, man the fryers, and clean the kitchens at Jack in the Box,” the lawsuit states.
EVENT DETAILS
WHO: Striking Jack in the Box cooks and cashiers, Legal Aid at Work
WHAT: Strike to protest rampant wage theft, ongoing retaliation from management
WHEN: Friday, October 23, 2026 at 1pm PT
WHERE: Jack in the Box, 1257 Park St, Alameda, CA 94501
California Fast-Food Workers Fight for Stronger Protections
With more than 630,000 workers across approximately 49,000 locations, California’s fast-food industry stands out as one of the state’s largest, fastest growing low-wage sectors. California’s fast-food workers are nearly 80 percent people of color, more than 60 percent are Latino/Latina and two-thirds are women. The industry employs the second largest group of low-wage workers in the state.
In 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1228 into law, creating a statewide Fast Food Council which is a groundbreaking vehicle for fast-food workers, employers, the public and key state agencies to develop minimum sectoral standards on wages, working hours and workplace conditions. Currently, the Council is without a chair and has not met since 2025. Workers across the state are calling for the Council to resume its important business.
Meanwhile, California’s fast-food industry is defined by its “race to the bottom” business model in which stores operate under tight margins at the expense of worker safety, pay, training, scheduling, staffing and more.