On the picket line McDonald’s workers win settlement In Los Angeles, between April and August 2020, workers at a McDonald’s complained about inadequate protection from COVID, including lack of social distancing and forcible exposure to customers who refused to wear masks. Following strikes to protest these unsafe working conditions, McDonald’s management retaliated by firing several workers. On the fired workers’ behalf, Service Employees Union Local 721 filed a letter with the California Labor Commissioner’s Retaliation Complaint Investigation Unit. The Labor Commission’s judgment requires McDonald’s to pay more than $125,900 in lost wages and retaliation penalties and orders that management offer the workers their jobs back.