Dallas: More than two dozen women have filed lawsuits against McDonald’s or filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saying they were sexually harassed while working for the fast food chain.
The charges – 25 filings in all – involve alleged incidents at McDonald’s restaurants and corporate offices in 20 cities across the U.S. in which workers as young as 16 or 17-years-old faced harassing behavior that included groping, indecent exposure, propositions for sex and lewd comments by supervisors.
Latarsha Smith, an employee at a McDonald’s in South Carolina, told reporters that the restaurant “went from being my second home to my personal hell” once she was routinely subjected to “physical, verbal, and sexual advances” from her boss.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Time’s Up, an organization that strives for gender equality, supported many of the 25 workers in their filings, which were announced Tuesday, two days before McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas.
McDonald’s replied to a request for comment by emailing a copy of a letter from CEO Steve Easterbrook to “Top Chef” host and executive producer Padma Lakshmi, among those scheduled to take part in a demonstration Tuesday outside McDonald’s headquarters in downtown Chicago.
The fast-food giant last year started working with RAINN, a group devoted to curbing sexual violence, to improve conditions for employees and upgrade the company’s harassment policies, Easterbrook wrote.
“We have enhanced our policy so that it more clearly informs employees of their rights, more clearly defines sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation, and provide examples of what unacceptable behavior looks like,” he stated. “It also underscores how employees can report a complaint if they do not feel comfortable addressing it with a manager.”
Although McDonald’s has policies against harassment, some workers and labor watchdogs contend the company doesn’t adequately enforce them.
“Year after year, worker after worker tells the same story of ineffectual response from McDonald’s to serious reports of sexual harassment,” Eve Cervantez, a lawyer involved in the cases against McDonald’s said in a statement on Tuesday. McDonald’s can and should do better.
