McDonald’s workers speak out over sexual harassment allegations

A toxic culture of sexual abuse, harassment, racism and mistreatment has been alleged by more than 100 current and former UK employees at McDonald’s stores.

The BBC was told the workers, some as young as 17, were groped and molested almost routinely.

Britain’s Equality Organization said it was “concerned” by the BBC’s findings and is starting new email hotline.

McDonald’s said it was “incorrect” and “profoundly apologizes”.

He added that all employees deserve to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace.

The BBC launched an investigation into working conditions at McDonald’s in February after the company signed a legally binding agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in which it committed to protecting its staff from sexual harassment.

At the time, McDonald’s insisted: “We already have a strong track record in this area.”

But our investigation revealed a very different picture.

Over the course of five months, we contacted McDonald’s workers to ask them about their experiences working there. Of the more than 100 allegations from employees we spoke to, 31 related to sexual assault and 78 related to sexual harassment.

We also heard 18 allegations of racism, while six people made allegations of homophobia.

Warning – this article contains disturbing content

Multiple workers have told us that McDonald’s UK store managers are responsible for harassment and assault.

Too often senior managers are said to have failed to act on complaints.

Staff have also told the BBC of sexual relations between managers and junior members of staff, which is against company policy.

Young women describe feeling constantly judged about how they look.

One current employee said she was seen by her male colleagues as “fresh meat” when she started working at its Nottingham branch. Other female workers told us that they were forced by managers to wear uniforms that were too tight for them.

“At McDonald’s there is a saying ‘tits on tills’ – boys in the kitchen, girls on the counter. The idea is to put attractive people in charge,” said Lucy, 22, who works in Norwich.

“It’s the expectation that if you work at McDonald’s you’re going to be harassed,” added Emily, who is 20. She left the Brighton branch last year after a colleague in his 60s continued to sexually fondle her hair and make her feel uncomfortable.

McDonald’s is one of the UK’s largest private sector employers. The fast-food giant has more than 170,000 people working in 1,450 restaurants.

Its staff is also one of the youngest workers in the country. Three quarters of employees are between 16 and 25 years old. For many, this is their first job.

Most workers are not directly employed by the company, as McDonald’s uses a franchise system, meaning that individual operators are licensed to operate the stores and hire staff.

Shelby was just 16 when she started working at a McDonald’s restaurant in Berkshire last year.

She said older male colleagues would use the cramped kitchen layout as an excuse to touch junior female staff inappropriately.

“They felt the stomach, the waist, the buttocks,” she said. “Every shift I worked, there would be at least a comment made, or I’d be brushed, touched, or something more serious, like being grabbed on the bottom, on the thighs.”

There was one man in his 50s, in particular, whom managers “warned” the young employees to stay away from, Shelby said.

One day last summer, she said, she was standing on the front counter when he came up behind her and grabbed her on top of him, pulling her onto his groin.

“I just froze,” she said. “I felt disgusting.”

Shelby says she told upper management what was going on at the store, but nothing was done. In her resignation email, she said it was a “toxic work environment.”

McDonald’s said they were “very sorry” to hear about what Shelby went through. He added that he was looking into why the issues she raised were not formally escalated at the time.

We don’t know how many of the workers we spoke to have filed formal complaints. But a number of them told us they did – only to be ignored.

In the case of Chiniere, 17, in Cheshire, who was sexually and racially harassed by a much older man, she initially raised the issue with a colleague who was responsible for staff welfare. She told her to ignore the man’s behavior and get back to work. After months of harassment, Chiniere confided in his stepfather, who wrote to the franchise, corporate headquarters and the police.

The man was then fired. Chiniere believes that if her stepfather had not intervened, nothing would have happened. McDonald’s described her experiences as “disgusting and unacceptable” and apologized unreservedly. He said he took swift action as soon as the problem became known and that the man was fired within three days. They added: “It takes great courage to speak out and as soon as we were made aware of the situation, the person in question was offered internal and independent external support.”

Another worker in Birmingham, who says she was spanked by a co-worker when she was 19, reported it to her manager immediately. But even though it was caught on camera and she had a visible bruise, she was forced to continue working with him, which made her feel so uncomfortable that she eventually quit.

Several workers also said that when complaints were filed against managers, they were moved from one McDonald’s restaurant within the franchise to another instead of being fired.

Other employees said they did not complain because they could not risk losing their jobs. Young workers at McDonald’s are often on zero-hours contracts – meaning their working hours are flexible but also at the mercy of the shift supervisors who set their shifts.

In the February settlement, McDonald’s pledged “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment and to provide training to employees.

But employees told the BBC that the training was not being taken seriously by managers.

One employee described perching an iPad next to a McFlurry machine and rushing through a bullying training video while making drinks.

Baroness Kishuaer Falkner, chair of the EHRC, said every company should have zero tolerance for sexual harassment and protect its workforce.

Its CEO, Steve Easterbrook, was fired in 2019 after it was revealed that he had an inappropriate, consensual relationship with McDonald’s employees.

Allegations of sexual harassment at McDonald’s first surfaced in the UK five years ago when the Bakery, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) said it had received 1,000 complaints. At the time, there were very few reports of the allegations – this may be because some cases were settled using confidentiality clauses.

Sarah Uley, BFAWU general secretary, said the new allegations revealed by the BBC were “shocking”.

Alastair McRaw, chief executive of McDonald’s UK & Ireland, said there was “simply no place for harassment, abuse or discrimination” at the company.

“Every single one of the 177,000 employees at McDonald’s UK deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace. There are clearly instances where we have failed and for that we deeply apologize,” he told the BBC.

“We will investigate all allegations made against us and any proven breaches of our code of conduct will be met with the strictest measures we can legally impose, up to and including dismissal.”

Mr Macrow said more than 2,000 managers had completed full awareness training and that most restaurant teams were already working under the new protections, which aimed to create a “safe and respectful workplace”. He added that the company has strict policies to ensure that its workplaces around the world are safe and respectful.

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Some of the names in this story have been changed to protect identities.

Additional reporting by George Dabbie.