Bay Area Teen Whistleblower Got 3 Popeyes Locations Fined for Child Labor Violations

Updated 11 a.m. Saturday

A Popeyes fast-food franchisee has paid $212,000 for child labor and wage violations at its restaurants in East Oakland, Newark and Tracy, federal regulators announced this week.

Minors under 14 years old are not allowed to work at food service establishments. But the company, 14th Street Chicken, hired children as young as 13 and had minors working longer hours than permitted by law, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Johmara Romero, who alerted workplace regulators about those problems last year as a 17-year-old cashier at the employer’s Oakland location, said the risk she took as a whistleblower “was worth it.”

“From what I’ve heard, there’s a lot more people speaking up now,” said Romero, who is now 18 and working as a grocery store cashier. “I feel like that’s good because you shouldn’t keep quiet about stuff that shouldn’t be going on at work. … You have to speak up.”

Romero told KQED she observed colleagues as young as 13 working late into the night, almost to midnight, which interfered with their learning at school. Romero spoke publicly about other workplace violations, too, alleging she and other minors experienced sexual harassment by managers who made crude jokes.

Following her allegations, Romero said her hours were cut, and she left the job.

In addition to the child labor violations, Department of Labor investigators found that 14th Street Chicken shortchanged workers by not paying them overtime earnings.

The agency recovered nearly $80,000 in unpaid wages and damages for 15 employees, most of whom have received restitution, a spokesperson said.

“The U.S. Department of Labor is determined to fight child labor violations in all sectors, including the fast-food industry,” Wage and Hour Division Assistant District Director Alberto Raymond said in a statement. “Child labor laws protect minors and help ensure young workers enjoy positive workplace experiences without jeopardizing their education.”

This is the third time the department has cited the Oakland-based Popeyes franchisee for breaking labor laws.

A spokesperson for Popeyes said the brand “takes issues like this very seriously.”

“Based on the allegations made in early 2023 by team members at a restaurant owned by one of our franchisees, we immediately shut down the restaurant to conduct a swift investigation and to remediate the issues that were identified,” said the spokesperson in a statement. “We’ve been staying close with this franchisee, and to our knowledge there have been no further violations.”

The employer paid additional penalties totaling $4,300 for citations last year by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) and the Labor Commissioner’s Office, according to a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees both agencies.

Nationwide, the Department of Labor assessed more than $8 million in penalties to employers after finding 5,800 kids employed in violation of child labor laws in 2023, a nearly 50% increase from the year before.

This story was updated to include statements by Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. and the California Department of Industrial Relations, which were provided after the story published on Feb. 8.