Young women across the country with remarkably similar reports of abuse and harassment at work at one of America’s largest and most iconic fast food chains: McDonald’s:
“He would comment on my body and other workers’ bodies, saying, ‘I’d have sex with you, I wouldn’t have sex with her,'” said Emily Anibal.
“The first thing was, ‘You have beautiful hair,’ it started to touch my hair,” said Jamelia Fairley. “Then it was physical; then he started grabbing my ass.”
Kat Barber said, “Any woman you can put on or approach takes advantage of that moment.”
Kimberly Lawson said, “It kind of made me feel isolated. I thought I was the only one going on now, you know what I mean? So I felt completely alone.”
Lawson, Fairley, Barber and Anibal have filed charges of discrimination or brought an action against McDonald’s corporate restaurants or their independently owned franchises. Each tells a story of persistent and unwanted harassment from male colleagues.
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Barber said, “The pliers I used to make the food would be used to grab my breasts.”
“48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, “Did she do that when it was just the two of you, or did she see what other people were doing?”
“He didn’t try to hide it at all,” she replied. “It was in front of everyone.”
Gillian Thomas, a senior lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “It’s hard to believe that this is still happening in the open today.”
Thomas said hundreds of female employees have been sexually harassed at McDonald’s restaurants, as described in up to 100 lawsuits and allegations of discrimination.
“The other particularly shocking piece at McDonald’s, which is, of course, considered the best first job in America, is how young the victims are – 15, 16, 17 years old,” said Thomas.
“Aren’t you saying this only happens at McDonald’s?” Moriarty asked.
“Oh, far from it. The food service industry is generally one of the worst demands for sexual harassment.”
Last year, in a survey of nearly 800 female workers at McDonald’s restaurants and franchises, three-quarters said they were harassed at work. In the same survey, commissioned by unions, a majority (71%) said they suffered consequences for reporting behavior.
But a company spokesman disputed the findings, saying the sample size was too small and “not in line with what we see in McDonald’s restaurants.”
And yet, there are stories like Jamelia Fairley’s. She told Moriarty that after reporting the harassment, “they gave me between 11 and 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 McDonalds owned by corporations in Florida when, she said, a new colleague began making naughty comments and touching her.
“When he first touched me, I told him to hold his hands for him, like, ‘Don’t touch me,'” she said.
“And what was his reaction when you said that?” Moriarty asked.
– He thought it was a joke.
“Have other people seen this happen?”
“Yes,” Fairley replied, “and so did other women at McDonald’s. I wasn’t the only one.”
Fairley reported the behavior to both a supervisor and the general manager, and yet she said, that did not end the offensive behavior: The managers sat there, watching him do it, and did nothing about it. “
Eventually, he was transferred to another store, she said, but not until Fairley reported another incident with another co-worker: “This particular comment, he actually really upset me. … He had asked me what it would be like to have sex with my daughter at that time and she was only a year old. ”
The employee was fired.
Fairley stayed. He said he needed a job, “so I could give him a roof over his head.”
In a corporate video, McDonald’s new CEO Chris Kempczinski says the company wants to be a leader in values: “That’s why it’s the right time to have this conversation … We’re doing the right thing for the right reasons. he loves that phrase because it hits you in the gut. Everyone knows what it means to do the right thing. “
At the end of 2019, the company launched a new extended policy to treat sexual harassment in its corporate stores. But 95% of McDonald’s are independently owned franchises and there politics is just a “resource” – not a requirement.
And this is how some past employees describe the sexual harassment training 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 standing across from me. She had a stack full of papers. She said,” Look, we’re going through very quickly. I need you to sign and date everything in order to do this. “
Moriarty asked, “Do you know if you’ve signed anything that lists policies related to complaints such as sexual harassment and what to do if you meet her?”
“I have no idea,” Lawson said.
I heard the same story over and over again.
Fairley said: “I have never learned any training in this regard.”
Emily Anibal said: “I don’t remember any training in this regard or having heard of it.”
Kat Barber said, “There was a page in the policy book I signed, but no one, you know, went through it with me.”
Gillian Thomas of the ACLU said: “So a policy that is on a piece of paper, stuck in a textbook that is never lived in the workplace, has no value.”
Which may be how a McDonald’s franchise worker in Mason, Michigan managed to harass colleagues for years.
Eve Cervantez, an employer lawyer who sued McDonald’s and the franchise, said, “This is a case where he was a serial harasser, a serial predator. He harassed, you know, every woman who was there, practically “.
Anibal was 17 when he went to work at that McDonald’s in April 2016 and met Shawn Banks, an exchange manager.
Moriarty asked, “How often would he comment or touch anyone?”
“Almost every exchange, for the most part,” Anibal replied.
“Did you think you just had to put up with it?”
“Yeah, it was kind of the environment, I think it was built at that restaurant, is that,” It’s normal. And if you don’t like it, then you can leave. “
He finally left in the spring of 2017. Five months later, when Barber (then 18) began working there, Banks was still a manager.
She told Moriarty, “He used to call me ‘bitch,’ ‘c ***,’ ‘ugly.” I was “fat,” I told him to stop.
“And would he?”
“No,” said Barber. “If it were anything, it would make it last longer.”
Barber said he reported the behavior to the general manager: “Normally, either I’ll laugh, [or] to be told I was dramatic. ”
In September 2018, she also resigned.
Moriarty asked, “In the end, what made you leave?”
“It was far too much to look not only at others who are sexually harassed, but also at being sexually harassed,” Barber said. “It made such an impact on my personal life. Even when I was looking for a new job, I was worried if someone from that job would sexually harass me.”
Shawn Banks did not respond to CBS News’ request for an interview. The owner of the franchise, through a lawyer, refused to answer written questions.
Moriarty asked lawyer Eve Cervantez, “Isn’t this just a bad apple?”
“It’s really not about a bad apple. The problem is not just that you have a harasser; it’s that you have a harasser who is not stopped.”
After Anibal and Barber – along with a few other women – filed an application, the franchise owner sold his stores.
Moriarty said: “McDonald’s might say, ‘How can we monitor the environment in each of these McDonald’s?’ ””
“First of all, McDonald’s actually has a lot of control over its franchises,” Cervantez said. So they actually have a lot of control. So the McDonald’s corporation could certainly train these general managers on sexual harassment and how to deal with it. “
In a statement to CBS News, McDonald’s said it was “providing training … to its franchisees” … and “providing a hotline for all franchisees to offer to their employees.”
If McDonald’s is held liable in the cases filed by these women, the damages may not be substantial; none earn more than $ 14 per hour.
But in a job that some consider inconsequential, Jamelia Fairley said she is finally seen and heard.
Moriarty asked, “Are you sorry to complain sometimes?”
“No, I don’t regret complaining at all,” Fairley said. “I feel like I stood up for myself. I stood up for my daughter. I stood up for other women who were intimidated. I feel like I’m making a difference.”
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Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: George Pozderec.