Not lovin’ it: abuse and sexual harassment at McDonald’s

by Richie Venton, SSP national workplace organiser •

The multinational McDonald’s has been accused of allowing ongoing sexual abuse and harassment by managers against its overwhelmingly young staff, hundreds of whom are now taking legal action against the fast-food giant, accusing them of failing to protect them at work.

Back in 2023, McDonald’s UK boss Alistair Macrow was summonsed to appear before Westminster’s Business and Trade Committee, and now MPs have ordered him to reappear to answer the charge that his promises to clean up behaviour in McDonald’s have patently not been carried out.

This follows complaints of at least 300 incidents to the watchdog Equality and Human Rights Commission, and legal action being pursued by 700 current and former McDonald’s workers.

McZero hours contracts
The multi-billionaire company employees 168,000 people in Britain alone. 89% of them are on zero hours contracts, making them all the more vulnerable to management bullying, harassment, verbal abuse, and outright displays of misogyny, homophobia, racism and abuse towards workers with disabilities.

Workers have described how their experiences have traumatised them, with an appalling litany of managers sending sexually explicit messages to female workers aged 16 to 18; giving a Nazi salute to a Jewish employee; managers publicly shouting and swearing at workers; and most commonly, managers ‘touching up’ junior members of staff or making lewd sexual comments, then telling them ‘it was only banter’ or to ‘suck it up’ when they complained.

‘I wouldn’t want my daughter working there…’
McDonald’s also stand accused of liberally using Non-Disclosure Agreements to protect their corporate image from public scrutiny, in the face of widespread complaints by workers about abuse and harassment by people wielding power over them in such precarious jobs.

Managers accused of this obnoxious behaviour are then frequently moved to other branches to avoid disciplinary action. As one former manager put it, “I’m a bit traumatised by it and I think I’ll continue to have bad memories of my employment for the rest of my life. If I had a sister or a daughter, I wouldn’t want them working in McDonald’s.”

Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union
For several years, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) has sought to recruit and organise McDonald’s workers and has fought for their rights at work.

I spoke to Mark McHugh, Regional Officer of the Bakers Union, who organises Region 5 — Scotland and the North East of England.

“This issue has arisen again despite McDonald’s previously getting pulled in front of a Westminster committee to answer questions about their inactivity towards such allegations. We believe as a union that McDonald’s are trying to sweep these issues under the carpet. The union has launched a campaign calling it out, and the merits of calling it out. Personally speaking, calling it out is all very well provided it is met with immediate action, investigated immediately, with transparency, and not covered up from manager to manager, and is met with swift retribution if there have been examples of sexual harassment.

“We also need to make sure the worker who has made these allegations is protected throughout the process, whether that means being moved to another store, and offered the support to get over what’s been happening in the workplace.

“I believe that a really key issue in this in that a union being involved, like the BFAWU — who have a number of members working in McDonald’s across the UK — that with the union at their back offers them an extra layer of protection, in dealing with this ongoing issue that McDonald’s have swept under the carpet.”

I asked Mark what sort of examples have been reported:
“Examples have been reported of managers speaking to some of the young workers requesting sexual favours for shifts. You couldn’t even begin to explain the depravity in that, preying on a vulnerable, precarious worker whose sole aim is to get as many shifts as they can in order to have a comfortable existence, whether they are at college, university or just working at McDonald’s. For someone to prey on a young worker trying to better themselves is beyond comprehension.

“Another part of that which is often overlooked is that a lot of these managers in McDonald’s are 23-, 24-, or 25-year-olds, who’ve not got any managerial experience. We believe in order to eradicate this from McDonald’s there needs to be some ownership in the selection process of suitability for managers, irrespective of age, and some accountability is put on the regional managers, whether company owned, or franchise owned. This practise just cannot continue.

“Most of the workers are on zero hours contracts and this is very much feast or famine. We’ve just come out of the Christmas and New Year period, when they might have been working 60+ hours, only to come into January and get told ‘you’re now dropping down to 12 hours a week’. And if you want to increase your hours then you know there’s no chance, but as I mentioned before, sexual favours for shifts are one way of dealing with that problem!

“This misogynistic behaviour happens amongst vulnerable young people who’ve taken their first step into the workplace. To have that experience in your first job is an issue that must be addressed immediately.”

I asked Mark about McDonald’s claims to have some sort of reporting system for this abuse.

“The last time they were brought to heel on this, McDonald’s claimed it was only a small minority involved, and they were actively making moves to make sure it didn’t happen going forward. But a couple of years later we find ourselves in the same position.

‘McStrike’
“It’s all very well McDonald’s coming out with rhetoric like that, but they need to put the actions into place to make sure that people working for McDonald’s — which is a global brand — don’t face this. And if they don’t, let’s look at taking their licence off them. If they’re not going to adhere to protecting their workers, then let’s look at taking the trading licence off them.”

Mark then told me some of what the Bakers union have already done in McDonald’s over recent years:

“The Bakers union across the UK have been really active, with the Fast Food Rights campaign, progressing to McStrike, to where we are currently, with members working within McDonald’s. We’ve made sure that we’re at the front of protecting the workers who’ve come to the union.

“It’s really important that we get this message out: McDonald’s is in the press for all the wrong reasons, so if any of your family members or children are working in McDonald’s, they need to be part of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union to give them that element of protection, not only within the workplace but also within certain legal frameworks afforded to union members.

“I’d like to finish with a promise to any young worker at McDonald’s that if they join the Bakers union, they will have our full support and protection within the workplace.”

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