Meta_Query Issue

Having issues with a query where I’m using meta_query to filter the results. The problem I’m having is when the key values are hard-coded the results work perfectly. When I try to use a php variable in it’s place I get nothing. I’ve gone through and made sure that the value of the variable is the same as what was hard-coded. I’ll completely stumped. Any ideas?

query_posts(array(
			'post_type' => 'issues',
			'ki_systems' => $getSystems,
			'orderby' => 'modified',
			'paged' => $paged,
			'posts_per_page' => '30',
			'meta_query' => array(
			  'relation' => 'OR',
				array(
					'key' => 'status',
					'value' => $workaround,
					'compare' => '=='
					),
				array(
					'key' => 'status',
					'value' => $resolved,
					'compare' => '==',
					),
				array(
					'key' => 'status',
					'value' => $unresolved,
					'compare' => '=='
					)
					)
					)
					);