Young women across the country with remarkably similar stories of workplace abuse and harassment at one of America’s largest, most iconic fast food restaurant chains: McDonald’s:
“He commented on my body and the bodies of other workers and said, ‘I would have sex with you, I would not have sex with her,’” said Emily Anibal.
“At first he thought, ‘You have beautiful hair’, started to touch my hair,” said Jamelia Fairley. “Then he was like physical; then he really started grabbing my ass.”
Kat Barber said, “Any woman he could get hold of or was around, he took advantage of that moment.”
Kimberly Lawson said, “I felt a little bit isolated. I thought I was the only one this is happening with right now, you know what I mean? So I just felt all alone.”
Lawson, Fairley, Barber and Anibal have all brought discrimination charges or litigation against McDonald’s company restaurants or their independent franchises. Each tells a story of persistent and unwanted harassment by male colleagues.
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Barber said, “The tongs we used to make the food he used to grab my breasts.”
48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, “Did he do that when you were alone, or did other people see this happen?”
“He wasn’t trying to hide it at all,” she replied. “It was in front of everyone.”
Gillian Thomas, a senior attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “It’s hard to believe it’s still happening so blatantly, this openly at this time.”
Thomas said hundreds of female employees have been victims of sexual harassment at McDonald’s restaurants, as described in as many as 100 lawsuits and allegations of discrimination.
“The other piece that’s especially shocking at McDonald’s, which naturally considers itself America’s best first job, is how young the victims are – 15, 16, 17 years old,” said Thomas.
“You’re not saying this only happens at McDonald’s?” Moriarty asked.
“Oh, far from it. The foodservice industry in general has one of the worst sexual harassment claims.”
Last year, three-quarters of a survey of nearly 800 female employees at McDonald’s restaurants and franchises said they were harassed at work. In that same survey, commissioned by unions, a majority (71%) said they were affected by reporting the behavior.
But a company spokesperson disputes the findings, saying the sample size was too small and “inconsistent with what we’re seeing in McDonald’s restaurants.”
And yet there are stories like Jamelia Fairley’s. She told Moriarty that, after reporting the harassment, “they gave me 11am to 3pm. 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 years old and a single mother, was working at a McDonalds in Florida when, she said, a new co-worker started making lewd comments and touching her.
“When he first touched me, I told him to keep his hands to himself, 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 he did it to other women at McDonald’s too. I wasn’t alone. ‘
Fairley reported the behavior to both a supervisor and the general manager, and yet, she said, it didn’t end the offensive behavior: “It got even worse, to the point where he pushed me like he grabbed my crotch. Managers stood there watching him do it, and they didn’t do anything about it. “
He was eventually transferred to another store, she said, but not before Fairley reported another incident with another colleague: “This comment really upset me … He asked me how much it would be. have with my daughter, and she was only a year old. ”
That employee has been fired.
Fairley stayed. She said she needed the job, “so that I could provide a roof over her head.”
In a corporate video, new McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski says the company wants to be a leader when it comes to values: “So now is the right time to have this conversation … We are doing the right thing for the right reasons. love 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 drew up an extensive new policy for dealing with sexual harassment in its own stores. But 95% of McDonald’s are franchises that are independent, and there the policy is just a “resource” – not a requirement.
And this is how some former 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 sitting across from me. She had a stack of papers. She said, ‘Here we are going through this very quickly. that you sign and date everything so we can get this done. ”
Moriarty asked, “Do you know if you’ve signed anything that states the policy dealing with complaints such as sexual harassment, and what to do if you come across it?”
“I have no idea,” Lawson replied.
We heard the same story over and over.
Fairley said, “I haven’t had any training in that at all.”
Emily Anibal said, “I don’t remember or hear about any training on that.”
Kat Barber said, “There was a page in the policy book that I signed, but nobody went through it with me, you know.”
Gillian Thomas of the ACLU said, “So a policy that is on a piece of paper, is in a handbook that is never actually lived in the work environment, is worthless.”
That might be how an employee at a McDonald’s franchise in Mason, Michigan, could harass colleagues there for years.
Eve Cervantez, an employment lawyer who is suing McDonald’s and the franchise, said, “This is one case where there was a serial harassment, a serial predator. He basically harassed every woman out there.”
Anibal was 17 years old when she joined McDonald’s in April 2016, and met Shawn Banks, a shift manager.
Moriarty asked, “How often would he comment or touch someone?”
“Pretty much any shift, most of the shift,” Anibal replied.
“Did you think you just had to put up with it?”
“Yeah, that was the kind of environment that I think was built in that restaurant, that’s, ‘This is normal. And if you don’t like it, you can leave.”
She finally left, in the spring of 2017. Five months later, when Barber (then 18) started working there, Banks was still a manager.
She said to Moriarty, “He called me ‘bitch’, a ‘c ***’, ‘ugly’. I was ‘fat’, I told him to stop.”
“And would he?”
“No,” said Barber. “If anything, it would make him more persistent.”
Barber said she reported the behavior to the general manager: “Normally I get a laugh, [or] get to hear that I was acting dramatically. ”
She also quit her job in September 2018.
Moriarty asked, “Why did you eventually leave?”
“It was way too much to see not only others being sexually harassed, but myself being sexually harassed,” Barber said. “It had such a profound impact on my personal life. Even when I was looking for a new job, I was concerned if someone at that job would sexually harass me.”
Shawn Banks did not respond to CBS News’ request for an interview. The owner of the franchise declined to answer written questions through a lawyer.
Moriarty asked lawyer Eve Cervantez, “Isn’t this just a bad apple?”
‘It’s really not about one bad apple. The problem isn’t just that you have a culprit; it is that you have an offender who is not stopped. ‘
After Anibal and Barber – along with several other women – filed suit, 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, McDonald’s actually puts a lot of control over its franchises,” Cervantez replied. ‘If you go to McDonald’s all over the country, they manage to eat the exact same burgers and fries. So they really have a lot of control. So the McDonald’s company could certainly train these general managers about sexual harassment and how to deal with it. “
In its statement to CBS News, McDonald’s said it is “making training available … to its franchisees” … and that it has “made available a hotline that all franchisees can provide to their employees.”
If McDonald’s is held liable in the cases brought by these women, the damage may not be substantial; no one was making more than $ 14 an hour.
But in a job that some consider insignificant, Jamelia Fairley said she’s finally being seen and heard.
Moriarty asked, “Do you sometimes regret your complaint?”
“No, I don’t regret complaining at all,” Fairley replied. “I feel like I stood up for myself. I stood up for my daughter. I stood up for other women he bullied. I feel like I made a difference.”
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Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: George Pozderec.