Young women across the country with remarkably similar relationships of abuse and harassment at work in one of America’s largest and most iconic fast food restaurant chains: McDonald’s:
“He would comment on my body and the bodies of other workers, saying,‘ I would have sex with you, I wouldn’t have sex with her, ’” Emily Anibal said.
“He first said like‘ you have good hair, ’he started touching my hair,” Jamelia Fairley said. “Then I was physical; then he started grabbing my ass.”
Kat Barber said, “Any woman who could get her hands on or be around was taking advantage of that moment.”
Kimberly Lawson said, “It made me feel isolated. I thought I was the only one going through it right now, you know what I mean? So I felt completely alone.”
Lawson, Fairley, Barber and Anibal have filed charges of discrimination or lawsuits against McDonald’s corporate restaurants or their independently owned franchises. Each tells a story of persistent and unwanted harassment by male co-workers.
CBS News
Barber said, “The tweezers we used to make the food, I would use them to grab my breasts.”
“48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, “Did you do this when it was just you, or did you see people passing by?”
“He didn’t try to hide it at all,” he replied. “I was in front of everyone.”
Gillian Thomas, a senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “It’s hard to believe that, at present, this is still blatantly happening, this in the open.”
Thomas said hundreds of employees have been sexually harassed at McDonald’s restaurants, as described in up to 100 lawsuits and discrimination charges.
“The other piece that especially surprises McDonald’s, which of course is considered the best first job in the United States, is the youth of the victims: 15, 16, 17 years old,” Thomas said.
“Aren’t you saying this just happens at McDonald’s?” Moriarty asked.
“Oh, far from it. The food service industry in general is one of the worst for sexual harassment claims.”
Last year, in a survey of about 800 McDonald’s restaurant and franchise workers, three-quarters said they were harassed at work. In this same survey, commissioned by the unions, a majority (71%) said they suffered consequences for reporting the behavior.
But a company spokesman disputes the findings, saying the sample size was too small and “was not compatible with what we are seeing at McDonald’s restaurants.”
And yet there are stories like that of Jamelia Fairley. He told Moriarty that after reporting the harassment, “I was given 11 to 15 hours. And I couldn’t work those hours; it wasn’t enough, it didn’t help me keep my place.”
In late 2018, Fairley, then 24 and a single mother, was working at a corporate-owned McDonalds in Florida when, she said, a new co-worker began making obscure comments and touching her.
“When he first touched me, I told him to stay with his hands, like,‘ Don’t touch me, ’” he said.
“And what was your reaction when he said that?” Moriarty asked.
“He thought it was a joke.”
“Have you seen other people see this happen?”
“Yes,” Fairley replied, “and so did other women at McDonald’s. I wasn’t the only one.”
Fairley denounced the behavior to both a supervisor and the general manager, and yet said that this did not end the offensive behavior: “It even got worse, to the point that it pushed me, as if I was caught there. The managers were there to see how he was doing, and they didn’t do anything about it. “
Eventually, he was moved to another store, but not until Fairley reported another incident with a different co-worker: “This particular comment really bothered me a lot. … He asked me how much it would cost. having sex with my daughter at the time and she was only a year old. ”
That employee was fired.
Fairley stayed. He said he needed the job, “so I could provide him with a roof over his head.”
In a corporate video, McDonald’s new CEO Chris Kempczinski says the company wants to be a leader when it comes to stocks: “That’s why now is the right time to hold this conversation … Let’s do the right thing for the proper reasons. I love that phrase because it hits you in the gut. Everyone knows what it means to do the right thing. “
In late 2019, the company released a new extensive policy to address sexual harassment in its corporate stores. But 95% of McDonald’s are independently owned franchises, and there the policy is only a “resource,” not a requirement.
And this is how some previous employees describe the training on sexual harassment they received:
Kimberly Lawson, who worked at a McDonald’s franchise in Kansas City in 2017 and 2018: “My orientation was a lady, she was sitting in front of me. She had a pile full of papers. She said, ‘Here, we’ll run this is a lot fast. I need you to sign and date everything so I can do it. “
Moriarty asked, “Do you know if you signed anything that lists the policy related to allegations such as sexual harassment, and what do you do if you find yourself there?”
“I have no idea,” Lawson replied.
We heard the same story over and over again.
Fairley said, “They never taught me any training on that.”
Emily Anibal said, “I don’t remember any training on this, or having heard of it.”
Kat Barber said, “There was a page in the policy book I signed, but no one, you know, spent it with me.”
Gillian Thomas, of the ACLU, said: “Therefore, a policy on a piece of paper, embedded in a manual that is never lived in the workplace, is worthless.”
What can it be like an employee of a McDonald’s franchise in Mason, Michigan was able to harass colleagues there for years.
Eve Cervantez, a labor lawyer who sued McDonald’s and the franchise, said, “This is a case where there was a serial harasser, a serial predator. He harassed, you know, all the women who were there, basically.” .
Anibal was 17 when he went to work at McDonald’s in April 2016 and met Shawn Banks, a shift manager.
Moriarty asked, “How often would you comment or touch someone?”
“Almost every shift, for most of the shift,” Anibal replied.
“Do you think we just had to put up with it?”
“Yeah, that was a kind of environment that I think was built in this restaurant, is that‘ that’s normal. And if you don’t like it, you can leave. “
He finally left, in the spring of 2017. Five months later, when Barber (who was then 18) started working there, the banks were still a manager.
She told Moriarty, “He called me ‘bitch,’ ‘c ***,’ ‘ugly.’ I was’ fat, ‘I told him to stop.’
“And would you?”
“No,” Barber said. “If anything, it would make him persist more.”
Barber said he denounced the behavior to the general manager: “Normally, either I would laugh, [or] they tell me it was being dramatic. ”
In September 2018, she also quit her job.
Moriarty asked, “In the end, what made you leave?”
“It was too much to see not only that other people were sexually harassed, but that they could also sexually harass me,” Barber said. “It was making a personal impact on my life. Even when I was looking for a new job, I was anxious if someone in that job would sexually harass me.”
Shawn Banks did not respond to CBS News’ request for an interview. The owner of the franchise, through an attorney, declined to answer written questions.
Moriarty asked lawyer Eve Cervantez, “Isn’t this just a bad apple?”
“It’s not really a bad apple. The problem isn’t just that you have a bully; it’s that you have a bully who’s not arrested.”
After Anibal and Barber, along with several other women, filed a lawsuit, the franchise owner sold his stores.
Moriarty said, “Could McDonald’s say,‘ How will we be able to control the environment at all these McDonald’s? “”
“First of all, McDonald’s really imposes great control over its franchises,” Cervantez responded. “Go to McDonald’s anywhere in the country, they get to have the same burgers and fries. So they actually have a lot of control. So the McDonald’s corporation could certainly be training these CEOs on sexual harassment and on how to manage it “.
In its statement to CBS News, McDonald’s said it “makes available to the training … its franchisees” … and “has made available to all franchisees a hotline to provide to its employees.”
If McDonald’s is held liable in cases filed by these women, the damages may not be substantial; none earned more than $ 14 an hour.
But in a job that some see as insignificant, Jamelia Fairley said they finally see it i heard.
Moriarty asked, “Do you sometimes regret complaining?”
“No, I’m not sorry to regret it,” Fairley replied. “I feel like I’m defending myself. I was defending my daughter. I was defending other women who were bullying me. I feel like I would be making a difference.”
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History produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: George Pozderec.