California Fast-Food Workers, Including Taco Bell, Seek ICE Shield Pledge, Threaten Strikes

The California Fast Food Workers Union has launched a renewed statewide push asking fast-food employers to sign a "Constitutional Pledge" to shield workers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a campaign the union says targets multi-brand locations and is backed by SEIU. The pledge request was documented in coverage republished March 1, 2026 and is being folded into the union’s wider strategy of local ordinance campaigns and workplace actions.

Legal Aid at Work has scheduled an event for "Wednesday, December 10 at NOON PST" at KFC/Taco Bell, 1695 Hollenbeck Ave, Sunnyvale, and its press copy states, "Cooks and cashiers at a KFC/Taco Bell in San Jose will launch a three-day strike on Wednesday to protest the company’s unfair treatment of workers." Legal Aid at Work says the workers will file complaints with the California Civil Rights Department alleging discrimination based on age, disability, and perceived immigration status and will demand the company reinstate cut hours. The Legal Aid release contains an internal inconsistency between the Sunnyvale event address and the described San Jose strike; organizers and store owners have not been listed in the materials provided here for clarification.

The union is coupling the ICE-shield pledge campaign with local legislation pushes. City councilmembers Hugo-Soto Martinez in Los Angeles and Peter Ortiz in San Jose began drafting Fast Food Fair Work ordinances last year that would require paid time off, predictive scheduling tools, and mandatory "know your rights" training. The union’s policy proposal would require annual Know Your Rights training administered by qualified independent third-party organizations, paid for by employers, and with workers compensated for their time.

The union draws on its 2023 California Fast Food Know Your Rights Worker Survey for empirical grounding: 300 workers responded from 213 fast-food locations across 83 cities in July and August 2023, reporting experiences from 32 brands including McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Subway, Carl’s Jr., Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and Wendy’s. The union also cites workplace enforcement examples: after a worker filed retaliation and wage theft complaints with the Labor Commissioner’s Office and a safety complaint with Cal/OSHA on November 29, 2023, a store action on November 30 led management to pay the worker sick pay and partially restore that worker’s schedule. The union document includes the fragment “for calling in sick at work threatens to push us into homelessness.”

Political context is layered: the campaign follows state-level action that the union and allies point to as precedent—Governor Gavin Newsom signed a measure on September 5 that the union says extended protections to more than half a million fast-food workers—and reflects SEIU’s long-running involvement in fast-food organizing. A union ally identified only as Henry described the strategy this way: “This is a vehicle to make things much bigger for many more workers all at once,” she said.

Union organizers, Legal Aid at Work and supporters are moving on multiple fronts: asking employers to sign the ICE-shield pledge, pressing city councils to pass Fast Food Fair Work ordinances, staging strikes and filing California Civil Rights Department complaints. Employers at the targeted KFC/Taco Bell location and other fast-food operators have not been quoted in the materials provided here; the union and Legal Aid at Work say they will continue to escalate workplace actions while pursuing administrative claims.