A Bunch of Mcdonalds Workers Just Filed Complaints About Sexual Harassment Again
McDonald'due south is under burn down for workplace sexual harassment—over again. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit confronting a McDonald's franchise owner, alleging that workers at 22 McDonald'southward stores, some of them teenagers, were subjected to "constant groping," offensive comments about male genitalia, and sexual intimidation. The accommodate comes just weeks after reports that a McDonald'south manager had raped a fourteen-year-sometime McDonald's worker in Pittsburgh later regularly harassing her. It turned out he was a registered sexual activity offender.
When I meet these stories, I'm horrified. But I'm not surprised. Because in them, I run across echoes of my own.
As a sophomore in high school working at McDonald's, almost every twenty-four hours I had to contend with a maintenance worker in his 20s who regularly harassed me. "If I grabbed your butt, what would you do?" he whispered while I was taking orders during the dinner rush. "Dang baby, you look skilful today," he'd greet me, blowing me kisses. Worst of all, he'd corner me in enclosed spaces and physically intimidate me. He was nine inches taller than me and many years older. And I was nevertheless a minor. Equally he leered downwards at me, I felt scared he would assault me.
As far as well many young women who work at McDonald'southward know, these experiences are not unusual. Sexual harassment is a fact of life at McDonald's stores beyond the state—and even beyond the globe. While the company claims it'due south addressing the problem, footling has changed for frontline workers.
Teenage workers like myself and the young women from recent news stories are specially vulnerable. McDonald's likes to say it's "America's best first chore," just any decent first job should ensure all workers, particularly underage girls, are safe from sexual harassment and intimidation.
It'southward long past time for McDonald'due south to step up and truly listen to workers like me, who accept been forced to put up with disgusting and traumatizing behavior while we're just trying to back up ourselves.
I began working at McDonald'due south in August 2018, nearly a year subsequently the #MeToo movement sparked a national conversation almost workplace sexual harassment. But I don't remember receiving whatever preparation from McDonald's about sexual harassment or how to report it. So when I started getting harassed, I didn't know what to do. The offset time my harasser made overtly sexual comments to me, it was during the dinner rush. He stood backside me and lingered, whispering and so only I could hear: "If I touched you, what would you do?"
Although I didn't receive anti-harassment training, I remembered from my orientation that crew members should talk to managers most any problems that come upward. Then afterwards during that shift, I went to my shift managing director to allow her know what happened. I know she heard me, simply she didn't respond. Her lack of response fabricated me feel like my experience—the harassment and my attempt to written report it—didn't matter.
1 of the most important things for people to understand is that at McDonald's, there's a wide gap between words and action. McDonald's might say it has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment. Only that isn't actually true because nosotros don't know who is responsible for investigating complaints raised by workers, and we don't know the consequences for declining to address them.
At my store alone, I wasn't the only women subjected to sexual harassment. The maintenance worker made sexually explicit comments to other women at the store too. At that place was also another man—the banana manager of the store—who chosen me "infant girl" instead of my name, and he'd squeeze and caress my shoulders when he talked to me. He did this to virtually of the women who worked there. Women complained, but nothing ever inverse.
This man was an assistant director for more than than xiii years. Where were his consequences? How could I trust that McDonald's would take my complaints seriously when he was in charge?
It'due south completely unacceptable that one of the biggest and nigh iconic employers in the world is letting rampant harassment slide while countless women, including teenage girls, have to navigate being hit on, groped, and cornered. This company, which brings in billions in profit every year, can afford to implement real, enforceable policies to postage stamp out its system-broad harassment trouble.
Women like me have been raising our voices most McDonald's sexual harassment problem for years. I filed a complaint with the EEOC and the Missouri Commission on Human being Rights over my experience. Many others have done the same and more, leading protests and even strikes. The company has responded in word, but not in deed.
Information technology's long past time for real alter, and that starts with sitting down with workers like me and hearing united states of america out.
McDonald'due south, are you listening?
Cyriah Blackman is a former teenage McDonald's worker and a leader in the Fight for $fifteen and a Matrimony in Missouri.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/i-was-sexually-harassed-teen-mcdonalds-its-got-stop-opinion-1637083
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