More than a hundred McDonald’s employees in the United Kingdom claim to have been victims of assault or sexual harassment or racism within the American fast food chain, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
A new case that adds to a real wave of revelations about assaults and toxic sexual behavior in the British world of work, a few years after the #metoo movement.
The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said it is “concerned to hear these new allegations of sexual and racial harassment” and is operating a “red line to report incidents of harassment at McDonald’s.” “, according to a statement issued on Tuesday. .
accusations 4 years ago
The fast food giant had already faced charges four years ago, when the Bakery and Food Workers Union (BFAWU) reported that more than 1,000 employees said they had been victims of sexual harassment and mistreatment in their workplace.
Former employee Shelby, who was just 16 when she started working at McDonald’s last year, told the BBC she was constantly being touched in inappropriate and unwanted ways by older employees in the kitchen, one of whom would grab her from behind and throw her. was pressing against him, among other things. incidents
He complained to management but nothing was done and he ended up resigning, describing in his farewell letter a “toxic work environment”. “Why do we have to go to work with fear in our stomachs?” Shelby wonders in an interview with the BBC.
many teenage workers
McDonald’s and the BFAWU union were not immediately available to respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
Reached by the BBC, McDonald’s UK and Ireland chief executive Alistair Macrow has apologized to the group for “clear failures” to protect employees at work.
The fast food chain has 177,000 employees in the UK, most of whom are very young, even teenagers.
In recent months, accusations of sexual assault and rape have emerged within the British employers’ CBI, of sexual assault against the former chairman of the Tesco board of directors, the investor Crispin Odey or even a former reporter for The Guardian.
Source: BFM TV
