McDonald’s employees in the United Kingdom denounce sexual harassment and racism – 07/18/2023 – Market

A toxic culture of sexual abuse, harassment, racism and bullying has been exposed by more than 100 current and recent employees of McDonald’s UK.

The workers, some as young as 17, are being groped and harassed almost routinely, the BBC reports.

Britain’s equality watchdog said it was “concerned” by the BBC’s revelations and was launching an email reporting channel.

McDonald’s acknowledged, for its part, that it had “failed” and “sincerely apologized”. He added that all employees deserve to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace.

The BBC began investigating working conditions at McDonald’s in February this year after the company signed an agreement with the Human Rights and Equality Commission (EHRC) in which it pledged to protect employees from harassment. sexual.

At the time, McDonald’s stated, “We already have a strong track record in this area.” But our investigation revealed a very different picture.

Over a five-month period, we reached out to McDonald’s employees to ask about their experiences working there. Of the more than 100 reports made by employees with whom we spoke, 31 were related to sexual abuse and 78 related to sexual harassment (or sexual harrasment, a definition that generally includes not only unwanted sexual advances, but also discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation ).

We also heard 18 allegations of racism, while six people made allegations of homophobia.

Warning: The content of this article may be disturbing for some readers.

Complaints made to the BBC include:

• A 17-year-old current employee in Cheshire, northwest England, claims a colleague 20 years her senior insulted her with a racial slur and asked to show her his penis, saying he wanted to make a “black and white” child with her;
• A former employee was 17 when a senior manager at a McDonald’s branch in Plymouth, southwest England, choked her and grabbed her body. A shift manager also sent her sexually explicit images;
• A manager in Hampshire, England, suggested that a 16-year-old employee perform sexual acts in exchange for vapes (electronic cigarettes);
• A manager tormented 16-year-old new employees in Cheshire, northwest England, trying to pressure them into having sex;
• A woman said she was insulted with slurs and the target of racist jokes at a branch in Aberdeen, in north-east Scotland;
• A current employee in Essex, in the east of England, claimed to have faced anti-Semitic abuse;
• A current employee, of Indian origin, said team members in Oxfordshire kept mimicking her speech and calling a Pakistani colleague a terrorist;
• Male managers and staff at a branch in Wales joked about placing bets on money to see which of them would sleep first with a new female employee;
• An outbreak of gonorrhea at a branch in Northern Ireland, where employee-to-employee sex was common.

Several employees told the BBC that managers at McDonald’s stores in the UK were responsible for the harassment and abuse. Too often they say that senior managers have not acted on the complaints.

Employees also revealed to the BBC that there had been sexual relationships between managers and team members in more junior positions, which is against company policy.

Young women reported feeling constantly judged for their appearance.

A current employee said she was seen by her male colleagues as “fresh meat” when she started working at a McDonald’s store in Nottingham, England. Other female employees told us they were forced by managers to wear uniforms that were too tight for them.

“There’s a saying at McDonald’s, tits on tills (which roughly translates to ‘tits at the register’) – boys in the kitchen, girls at the counter. The idea is to put attractive people first,” said Lucy, who is 22 and works in Norwich, England.

“The expectation is that if you work at McDonald’s you will be harassed,” added Emily, 20. She left the shop where she worked in Brighton, England, last year after a 60-year-old colleague kept stroking her hair in a sexually suggestive way, making her uncomfortable.

McDonald’s is one of the largest private sector employers in the UK. The fast food giant has more than 170,000 people working in 1,450 establishments.

Its staff is also one of the youngest workforces in the country. Three-quarters of its employees are aged between 16 and 25. For many, it is their first job.

Most of the employees are not hired directly by the company, as McDonald’s uses a franchise system, which means that each of the operators is licensed to run the stores and employ the employees.

‘I was going to work with fear’

Shelby was just 16 when she started working at a McDonald’s store in Berkshire, England, last year.

She said older male colleagues used the cramped layout of the kitchen as an excuse to inappropriately touch younger female employees. “They felt their stomachs, their waists, their bottoms,” she recalls.

“Every shift I worked there was at least one comment being made, either I was pulled over, or a hand was passed over me, or it was something more serious like grabbing my butt or my hips.”

There was one man in his 50s in particular who managers “warned” younger staff members to stay away from, according to Shelby.

One day last summer, she said, she was standing on the counter when he came up behind her and grabbed her, pressing her against his crotch. “I just froze,” she says. “I was disgusted.”

Shelby claims she told senior management about what was going on at the establishment, but nothing was done. In her resignation email, she wrote that it was a “toxic work environment”.

McDonald’s stated that it was “deeply sorry” to learn what Shelby went through. And she added that she was investigating why the issues she raised were not formally escalated at the time.

Close view of managers

We don’t know how many of the employees we spoke to made formal complaints. But several of them told us they did — only they were ignored.