Lourdes Farfan has seen a lot during the 19 years she has worked for various Jack in the Box restaurants in San Jose, California. New products have come and gone. Some customers have been polite, others irate. The country suffered through the Great Recession and a global pandemic. Her children, three of whom have worked alongside her at various times, grew into adults.
Until recently, however, there was one thing the 52-year-old had never seen: a single representative from the government checking on workplace conditions. She had never heard of the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, which enforces the state’s wage laws, or the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, also known as Cal/OSHA, the state agency in charge of workplace safety. “I didn’t know anything about my rights,” Farfan said. “And so I did what everyone else did: I stayed quiet.”
