More than 100 McDonald’s workers allege sexual assault, racism and bullying
More than 100 McDonald’s staff members have said they were subjected to sexual assault, sexual harassment, racism and bullying.
Some as young as 17 are being groped and harassed on a regular basis while being told to just ‘ignore’ perpetrators by managers, a BBC investigation found.
Journalists spent five months speaking to current and former employees and heard 31 allegations of sexual assault, 78 of sexual harassment, 18 of racism and six of homophobia.
Shelby was just 16 when she started working at a McDonald’s branch in Berkshire last year.
She said older male colleagues would ‘grope the stomachs, waists and bums’ of junior female staff and use the small kitchen space as an excuse.
‘Every shift I worked, there would be at least a comment being made, or I’d be brushed, a hand brushed across me, or it would be a more severe thing, like having my bum grabbed, hips grabbed,’ she added.
There was even a man, in his 50s, who younger staff were ‘warned’ about, she said.
The young girl told how, during one shift last summer, he stood behind her and pulled her onto his groin, making her feel ‘disgusted’.
She claims nothing was done when she reached out to senior management for help and she eventually quit, writing that there was a ‘toxic work environment’ in her resignation email.
McDonald’s has since said it is ‘deeply sorry’ to hear about what happened and stressed it is now investigating her complaints which were not formally escalated at the time.
Elsewhere, in Cheshire, 17-year-old Chinyere was sexually and racially harassed by an older man.
She told a female colleague who was responsible for staff wellbeing but she said Chinyere should not pay attention to the man and go back to work.
It was only when Chinyere confided in her stepdad about what she was experiencing that any action was taken.
He wrote to the franchise, corporate headquarters and the police before the man was eventually fired.
McDonald’s said what Chinyere went through was ‘abhorrent and unacceptable’ and highlighted that the man was sacked within three days of the issue being brought to their attention.
Meanwhile, 22-year-old Lucy, who worked in Norwich, said McDonald’s used the saying ‘tits on tills’ to describe girls working behind the counters and boys working in the kitchen.
Emily, 20, said she left a Brighton branch last year, after a male colleague in his 60s insisted on stroking her hair in a sexual way.
A former Plymouth worker said a senior manager choked her and groped her bum. She also claims to have received explicit images from a shift manager.
These are just some of the many shocking accusations, with others describing a Pakistani worker being called a terrorist in Oxfordshire and an Essex staff member experiencing anti-Semitic abuse.
McDonald's full statement:
‘Every one of the 177,000 employees in McDonald’s UK deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace.
‘There are clearly instances where we have fallen short and for that we deeply apologise.
‘There is simply no place for harassment, abuse, or discrimination of any kind at McDonald’s, and we will investigate all allegations brought to us, and all proven breaches of our code of conduct will be met with the most severe measures we can legally impose, up to and including dismissal.
‘In February this year McDonald’s UK committed with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to a zero-tolerance approach to any kind of harassment.’
Other behaviours which were inappropriate or against company policy, as opposed to being illegal, were exposed as well.
In Northern Ireland, sexual relationships between staff members were such commonplace that the branch was hit with an outbreak of gonorrhoea.
Many said managers did not take action on their complaints while others said they were too scared to lose work to flag anything.
Lots of McDonald’s workers are on zero-hour contracts, meaning people’s wages are determined by how the shift manager creates the rota.
The fast-food chain is one of the UK’s largest private sector employers, with more than 170,000 workers keeping its 1,450 branches running.
Many of these staff members are in their first-ever jobs, with three-quarters of them between the ages of 16 and 25.
McDonald’s signed an agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in February, pledging to protect staff from sexual harassment.
The company came under fire five years ago, when the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) revealed it had received 1,000 complaints.
It came out that chief executive Steve Easterbrook had been having inappropriate consensual relationships with employees and he was fired in 2019.
McDonald’s UK and Ireland chief executive Alistair Macrow responded to the BCC’s report, saying the company had ‘fallen short’ in some cases and ‘deeply apologises’.
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