More than 100 current and former UK employees of the fast-food business McDonald’s have made allegations about a poisonous culture of sexual assault, harassment, racism, and bullying.
The BBC was informed that groping and harassment of employees, some of whom are as young as 17, occurs frequently.
The UK equality watchdog announced the opening of a new email hotline after expressing “concerned” over the BBC’s results.
McDonald’s said it had “fallen short” and it “deeply apologised”.
The importance of a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace for all employees was emphasized.
In February, the BBC initiated an investigation into the working conditions at McDonald’s following the company’s commitment to protect its staff from sexual harassment through a legally binding agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Despite McDonald’s previous claims of having a strong track record in this area, our investigation has uncovered a starkly contrasting reality.
Over a period of five months, we reached out to McDonald’s employees to gather information about their experiences working there. Among the more than 100 allegations brought forth by the employees we spoke to, 31 were related to sexual assault, and 78 were related to sexual harassment.
Furthermore, we received reports of 18 allegations of racism and six instances of homophobia.
Claims the BBC has heard include:
A 17-year-old current employee in Cheshire who says a colleague 20 years older than her called her a racial slur word and asked to show her his penis, and said he wanted to make a “black and white” baby with her
A former worker who was 17 when a senior manager at a Plymouth restaurant choked her and grabbed her bottom. A shift manager also sent her sexually explicit images
A manager in Hampshire who suggested a 16-year-old male worker perform sexual acts in exchange for vapes
A manager who preyed on 16-year-old new female starters in a Cheshire restaurant, trying to pressurise them into having sex
A woman who said she was called a slur word and subject to racist jokes at an Aberdeen branch
A current worker in Essex who says she faced antisemitic abuse
A current worker in Oxfordshire, originally from India, who says crew members spoke in “gibberish” to imitate her and called a Pakistani colleague a terrorist
Male managers and crew members at a branch in Wales making jokes about putting cash bets on which of them could sleep with a new recruit first
An outbreak of gonorrhoea at a branch in Northern Ireland where sexual relationships between staff members were commonplace
Multiple workers told us that McDonald’s managers at the outlets across the UK were responsible for the harassment and assaults.
All too often, senior managers are said to have failed to act on complaints.
Staff have also told the BBC of sexual relationships between managers and more junior members of staff, which is against company policy.
Young women have described feeling constantly judged about how they looked.
One current worker said she was seen by her male colleagues as “fresh meat” when she started at her branch in Nottingham. Other female workers told us they were forced by managers to wear uniforms that were too tight for them.
“There is a saying at McDonald’s, “tits on tills” – boys in the kitchen, girls on the counter. The idea is to put attractive people at the front,” said Lucy, who’s 22 and worked in Norwich.
“It’s the expectation that if you work at McDonald’s, you will be harassed,” added Emily, who’s 20. She left her branch in Brighton last year, after a male colleague in his 60s kept stroking her hair in a sexually suggestive way and making 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 are also one of the country’s youngest workforces. Three quarters of its employees are aged between 16 and 25. For many, it is their first job.
Most workers are not directly employed by the company as McDonald’s uses a franchise system, which means individual operators are licensed to run the outlets and employ the staff.
‘I went to work in fear’
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 layout in the kitchen as an excuse to touch junior female staff inappropriately.
“They’d grope stomach, waists, bums,” she said. “Every shift I worked, there would be at least a comment being made, or I’d be brushed, a hand brushed across me, or it would be a more severe thing, like having my bum grabbed, hips grabbed.”
There was one man in his 50s, in particular, that managers “warned” young staff members to stay away from, Shelby said.
Would you report or try to stop sexual harassment?
One day last summer, she said she was standing at the front counter when he came up behind her and grabbed her onto him, pulling her onto his groin.
“I just froze,” she said. “I felt disgusted.”
Shelby says she told senior management about what was going on in the store, but nothing was done. In her resignation email, she said it was a “toxic work environment”.
McDonald’s said it was “deeply sorry” to hear about what Shelby went through. It added that it was investigating why any issues that she raised were not formally escalated at the time.
Managers turning a blind eye
We do not know how many of the workers we spoke to made formal complaints. But a number of them told us they did – only for them to be ignored.
In the case of 17-year-old Chinyere in Cheshire, who was sexually and racially harassed by a much older man, she initially raised it with a female colleague who was responsible for staff wellbeing. She told her to ignore the man’s behaviour and go back to work. After months of harassment, Chinyere confided in her stepfather who wrote to the franchise, to corporate headquarters and the police.
The man was then fired. Chinyere believes if her stepfather hadn’t intervened, nothing would have happened. McDonald’s described her experiences as “abhorrent and unacceptable” and apologised unreservedly. It said it took swift action as soon as the issue came to its attention and that the man was dismissed within three days. They added: “It takes a great deal of courage to speak up and as soon as we were made aware of the situation the individual in question was offered both internal and independent external support.”
Another worker in Birmingham, who says she was smacked on the bottom by a male colleague when she was 19, reported it immediately to her manager. But despite it being caught on camera and her having a visible bruise, she was forced to continue working with him, which made her so uncomfortable that she eventually quit.
Several workers also said that when complaints were made about managers, they were then moved from one McDonald’s restaurant within the franchise to another, rather than being fired.
Other employees said they didn’t complain as they couldn’t risk losing work. Young staff at McDonald’s are often on zero hours contracts – it means their hours are flexible, but also that they are at the mercy of shift managers who decide their rotas.