Fast food workers in San Jose demonstrate in favor of an ordinance mandating that employers provide annual “know your rights” training.

After 17 years of working in fast food restaurants in San Jose, Ramona Martinez, 53, had long learned to make do. Stretched between two fast food jobs that paid her $17 an hour, she strained to cobble together enough money to support her diabetic husband — his hospital visits and insulin — and their young daughter. Forty hours a week at that rate just barely covered the $2,900 median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose. There was no time for emergencies and appointments and all the other things that go into the maintenance of a life. She had to hustle.

So, she did.

Cobbling together full-time hours at McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr., Martinez mechanically cooked trays upon trays of meat at the nonstop and breakneck pace demanded of her. At one of the restaurants, the gloves she and her colleagues were provided to pull the blistering metal trays out of hot ovens were full of holes. If they weren’t careful, they’d burn their fingers badly. So, they patched together rags and torn cardboard to insulate their hands. They used the same improvised insulation when cleaning the industrial deep fryers, full of metal pieces slicked with hot grease. Martinez didn’t protest. She needed the job.

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In August, when outdoor temperatures regularly peaked at 95 degrees, the air conditioners at one of her........

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