Trans Burger King employee dies of COVID-19

Burger King workers strike after the death of a trans coworker while working with COVID-19 symptoms

GAYLES.TV.- Angela Martínez Gómez had been working on the Burger King de Santa Monica (California) 15 years. Began to show symptoms of COVID-19, but she was forced by her bosses to continue working. The managers made Gomez She continued to work for seven days, even as she spluttered, took frequent breaks in the bathroom, and was visibly ill before leaving her shift on June 26. Gomez died at the age of 42 from complications caused by the coronavirus, but the management of the Burger King He attributes his death to the fact that he was injecting hormones. Angela was a trans woman.

Fast food chain employees staged a strike and filed a complaint with state and county regulators. California. They contend that the company failed to provide personnel with necessary protective equipment. After the death of Ángela several coworkers also suffered from symptoms of COVID-19. An employee started showing symptoms and was also asked to go to work. The workers denounce that Burger King He did not supply masks to older people for each shift or implement physical distance requirements in the kitchen. The premises were not properly cleaned either.

Burger King attributes his death to hormonal treatment

«Angela had symptoms of COVID-19 while working but Burger King blames his sexual identity instead of COVID-19 as the cause of his death. Ángela she was a transgender woman and the management says she died 'from injecting hormones'… that doesn't make any sense«, Explains explains Yolanda Santiago Garcia, a restaurant chain worker who filed a formal complaint that the company has violated state and local health laws. «I am concerned about my health and that of my family; in my house we are eight people and both my brother and I are diabetics », he wrote in the complaint, «Last week I visited my grandchildren, and now I don't know if I have the COVID-19 or if I have passed it to them.»

«Burger King it keeps us hidden and now our lives and those of our families are at risk », Add Yolanda, who are "Burger King did not explain to us that there were confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 and they're not being honest about what happened to Ángela. Last Friday a group of employees gathered to hold a vigil carrying banners that read "Say her name » Y "Trans Lives Matters ». Employees Burger King They are calling for the restaurant to be closed immediately, for all workers to be quarantined with pay, and for the company to be held accountable for the "dangerous and deadly conditions»That the workers have suffered.