Articles & Interviews
"They don't have adequate staff to provide relief [for workers] to take their legally protected ten-minute breaks — sometimes they don't have the relief to even go to the restroom," said Emiliana Sparaco, an organizer with the Fight for 15 campaign that for years has pushed for higher wages for service-industry employees.
Read the article from the San Diego Reader about the action she organized at a National City Burger King over unsafe working conditions: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/jul/28/ticker-burger-war-national-city/
"I'm asking workers to take a risk, I'm asking them to challenge the fact that they're being exploited," she said of her job. "And I feel like it would only be right for me to do the same thing, because I'm in the same position that they're in."
California Fight for $15 organizer Emiliana Sparaco told International Business Times she and her colleagues were "in the same position" as the fast-food workers they're trying to organize: overworked, underpaid and precariously employed. Despite being one of just two organizers assigned to the entire fast food campaign in San Diego, Sparaco said she makes approximately $34,000 per year without overtime.
Read more about her efforts in this article by the International Business Times here: https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/minimum-wage-fast-food-workers-now-fight-15-organizers-want-join-union-too-2373114
For more info on organizing during the Fight for 15 with SEIU at the time, read here: https://inthesetimes.com/article/breaking-fight-for-15-organizers-tell-seiu-we-want-15-and-a-union
said Emiliana Sparaco, a San Diego-based Fight for $15 organizer. “This campaign is our way of showing workers that we are prepared to lead by example and strengthen the Fight for $15 movement.”
Read more about how she led from the front in the fight for job security: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2016/05/fight-for-15-organizers-demand-a-union/
“We are demanding the same thing low-wage workers across the country are demanding: job security, fair wages, respect and a union,”