Skip to main content

McDonald's faces class action over 'pervasive sexual harassment'

(ITNTV) - McDonald’s Corp has been hit with a class action lawsuit accusing it of subjecting female employees in its corporate-owned fast-food restaurants in Florida to widespread sexual harassment.
FILE PHOTO: The McDonald's logo is seen outside the fast-food chain McDonald's in New York, U.S., October 22, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The lawsuit, filed on Friday in federal court in Chicago, says the company fostered a climate of “severe or pervasive sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including groping, physical assaults, and sexually-charged verbal comments.”
McDonald’s said in a statement that it was committed to ensuring workers were not subject to sexual harassment.
“The plaintiffs’ allegations of harassment and retaliation were investigated as soon as they were brought to our attention, and we will likewise investigate the new allegations that they have raised in their complaint,” it said.
The plaintiffs, McDonald’s employee Jamelia Fairley and former employee Ashley Reddick, are seeking to represent a class of female employees of Florida’s more than 100 corporate-owned, non-franchise McDonald’s locations. They are asking for $500 million in compensatory damages and additional punitive damages.
Fairley and Reddick said in their complaint that McDonald’s failed to provide training to prevent sexual harassment and shuffled serial harassers from one location to another without consequence.
ADVERTISEMENT
“McDonald’s strategy in Florida appears to be: deny, ignore, and punish anyone who complains too loudly, and at times, move harassers from one restaurant to another restaurant, where they have access to and can further harass more women,” they said.
Reddick worked at a Sanford, Florida, McDonald’s restaurant from 2015 until 2018, when she was fired for reporting unwanted sexual comments and touching by a male coworker, the complaint said. Fairley was harassed by two male coworkers while working at the same store, beginning in 2018, according to the complaint.
Management knew of the harassment of both women but failed to take appropriate action, the lawsuit said.
Sexual harassment allegations have plagued McDonald’s since 2016, when it first faced a wave of complaints filed with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
McDonald’s also faces another class action in Michigan, as well as individual lawsuits.
About 95% of McDonald’s U.S. restaurants are run by franchisees rather than by McDonald’s itself. The company has argued that it cannot be held responsible for harassment in its franchise restaurants, and a federal appeals court in California agreed with that view last year.
ADVERTISEMENT
Friday’s lawsuit, however, concerns only corporate-owned stores.
Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook was fired last November for having an improper consensual relationship with an employee, though he was not accused of harassment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel to fight coronavirus

Madrid (ITNTV) The European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel as it attempts to contain the  ongoing spread of the coronavirus  on the continent. "The less travel, the more we can contain the virus," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday following a video conference between G7 leaders. She appeared confident that the European Council would sign off on the restriction in a Tuesday vote. The bloc's member states imposed aggressive measures on Monday,  days after the  World Health Organization (WHO) said Europe was at the epicenter of the pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron declared "war" on the virus during a national address on Monday, banning all social events across the country -- including family gatherings. Macron said those who have gathered in public places in recent days have not been respecting previous measures to limit the outbreak's spread in France, which as of Monday had 5,380 con...
Post a Comment
Read more

PhD positions: In Institute of Biochemistry, Jena University Hospital - Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany

PhD positions: In Institute of Biochemistry, Jena University Hospital - Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany   🇩🇪 . Subjects: Neurobiology / Imaging Description: 1 PhD position in Neurobiology / Imaging Prof. Britta Qualmann, Inst. of Biochem. I, UKJ - Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany Prof. Christian Geis, Section of Translat. Neuroimmunol., Dept. Neurol., UKJ We seek for a productive addition to our research team in a collaborative project. We plan to study pathomechanisms of synaptic changes underlying autoimmune disorders of the central nervous system applying super-resolution microscopy. The Geis lab examines immune-mediated changes of synapses by interactions with pathogenic human antibodies against neuronal proteins. Short- and long-term effects on neuronal networks are analyzed using electrophysiological and various microscopy methods. The Qualmann lab is an internationally well-known lab that focusses on proteins with the power to s...
Post a Comment
Read more

80 pct of life stopped in Turkey due to outbreak, says interior minister

Turkish citizens, especially those living in metropolises, have been abiding by the “social isolation” principles laid out by the government, Interior Minister  Süleyman Soylu  has said, adding that almost 80 percent of life “stopped” in  Turkey . “Up until now, just our ministry issued 38 circulars, 17 of which concern the borders. Many high-level precautions have been taken. Right now, 80 percent of life stopped in Turkey,” Soylu said on March 26 in an interview with a private broadcaster. Soylu also provided updated figures for passenger traffic. He said that there is a 73 percent decline in inter-city bus services, adding that these services can also be suspended if needed. On intra-city traffic, Soylu said that there has been an 80 percent decline. This figure was 65 percent according to another interview the minister held on March 25. The government has four cruxes it predicates on when taking measures against the spread of the novel  coronaviru...
Post a Comment
Read more