A McDonald’s manager in Ontario has been charged after allegedly exposing himself to a female employee. The manager, who is a 58-year-old man, is accused of entering the employee’s office, locking the door, and then exposing himself. The employee immediately reported the incident to police and the manager was later arrested and charged with one count of indecent exposure. The investigation is ongoing and McDonald’s is cooperating with local authorities. No further details about the incident have been released.
Christine says she “saw a lot of things that were wrong” during her seven years working at McDonald’s.
Christine was working at a McDonald’s in south London in 2018 when she says she was sexually harassed by a manager.
“He pulled his pants down in the storage room,” she said, adding that the experience made her “scared.”
Her story comes after McDonald’s signed an agreement with Britain’s Equality Body after concerns were raised about how it would deal with sexual harassment complaints.
McDonald’s said Christine’s experiences were “completely unacceptable”.
“We are very concerned about these allegations,” said a spokesman. “We would encourage them to contact us directly so we can investigate immediately.”
Currently, the number of complaints of sexual harassment from McDonald’s employees in the UK is unclear, but four years ago the union representing the company’s employees, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), said they received 1,000 of them have.
Concerns about inadequate procedures to deal with the allegations were raised by workers through the union, which led to interventions by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
And on Wednesday, news broke that the fast-food giant signed a legal agreement with the EHRC to protect employees from sexual harassment.
The agreement, known as a Section 23 agreement under the Equality Act 2010, means that the EHRC will now monitor the company to verify that it is complying with the law. If it finds evidence that it isn’t, it will investigate. The EHRC told the BBC it “did not make any frivolous agreements”.
Christine, who has waived her right to anonymity, started working at McDonald’s in 2011, having just moved to London. She told the BBC she “would really love it” but added: “I had no idea what I was getting into”.
She described a toxic work culture where managers flirt with more junior staff and another manager goes around “touching everyone’s ass.”
“I saw a lot of things that were wrong,” she said.
She described how a manager kept coming up to her and saying “inappropriate things”.
She tried to manage the situation by asking colleagues to intervene. Christine then said she began to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks and began taking antidepressants “just to cope with going to work.”
“How do you expect to work when you’re having a panic attack, you can’t breathe? Your heart is racing and you’re scared,” she said.
“You don’t want that person to come to you and do or say anything. You’d assume she’d get the message if you said no, but she just thinks it’s okay. She doesn’t see what she’s doing to you.”
The worst happened one day in 2018 when she felt unwell and went to the warehouse to ask the manager for permission to go home.
“He started making really inappropriate sexual suggestions that I wasn’t comfortable with,” she said. “He dropped his pants in camp and wanted me to do inappropriate things.”
Christine said she left and went to her manager to make a complaint, but added after the manager spoke to the man in question she was told to “go back in the kitchen and work with him”.
When she objected, the manager told her to call the police if she had such a problem.
“So I thought, good. I packed my things and went home,” she said.
Christine never worked at McDonald’s again, although she claims the man is still employed there.
She described her time at the fast food chain as “one of the worst experiences of my life”.
“I want McDonald’s to realize that what they’re doing isn’t right,” she said. “It feels like you’re being bullied, it feels like you have no voice,” she said.
“You shouldn’t have to go to work anxious or scared … you need this job to pay your bills and keep a house running, but at what cost.”
In response to Christine’s story, McDonald’s said the experiences she described were “completely unacceptable and have no place in our restaurants”.
A spokesman added that the safety of its teams and customers is “absolute priority” and said the company “encourages all employees to speak up if they have any concerns”.
Ranjit O’Mahony of Thompson Solicitors, who has worked with the union on sexual harassment complaints, said all cases the firm had referred from the BFAWU were “settled with a confidentiality clause at McDonald’s urging”.
She said the firm “washes its hands off legal liability when it can by passing the buck to local managers, and the franchise system they operate for the stores enables them to do so.” “.
‘Zero Tolerance’
As part of the Section 23 agreement, McDonald’s has committed to a number of measures to protect employees in the UK from sexual harassment. This includes communicating a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and improving the response to complaints.
Other measures include conducting an anonymous survey of workers on workplace safety and providing employees with training on harassment.
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Chair of the EHRC, said that by signing the agreement, McDonald’s has demonstrated its intention to make its restaurants “safe places to work”.
Meanwhile, Alistair Macrow, managing director of McDonald’s Restaurants Limited in the UK and Ireland, said he welcomed the “opportunity to work with the EHRC”, adding that harassment and abuse had “no place” at McDonald’s.
But Sarah Woolley, general secretary of BWAFU, said she “didn’t have a lot of confidence” that the agreement would change the culture at McDonald’s and said the union didn’t think the complainants had been consulted “in the way they think they did.” problem should be fixed”.
Steve Easterbrook, former CEO of McDonald’s (right)
There have been allegations of sexual harassment by workers at McDonald’s US restaurants for several years.
In October 2021, McDonald’s employees walked out of restaurants in 12 US cities in protest at the fast-food giant’s handling of allegations of sexual harassment.
In 2019, Steve Easterbrook was fired as McDonald’s chief executive after discovering he was in a consensual relationship with an employee, with the firm saying he had “violated company policy”.
Further investigation uncovered hidden ties to other employees, and in January he was fined by the US Financial Services Authority for misleading investors about his 2019 firing.
Mr. Easterbrook agreed to pay a $400,000 penalty without admitting or denying the claims.
The food giant prohibits “any kind of intimate relationship between employees in a direct or indirect reporting relationship”.
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