'You will hear us today': McDonald's workers strike to protest sexual harassment

Source: washpost




McDonald’s workers go on strike over sexual harassment

Emboldened by the #MeToo movement, McDonald’s workers participated in a strike Sept. 18 to target workplace sexual harassment. (Drea Cornejo /The Washington Post)

September 19 at 4:59 AM


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The workers who led Tuesday’s strike are demanding that the company hold mandatory training for managers and employees, and create a secure system for responding to sexual harassment complaints. They also want the company to form a committee where workers and representatives of women’s rights groups can play a role in addressing sexual harassment.

The strike comes several months after multiple women chose to take legal action against the company. In May, 10 McDonald’s workers filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that they faced pervasive sexual harassment and a climate in which women who spoke up were retaliated against or ignored. The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which was created this year to support women who report sexual harassment, paid for their legal representation.

The complaints spanned nine different cities but followed a similar theme, The Washington Post reported. In Kansas City, Kim Lawson said her manager had sent her home early when she rejected his sexual advances. In St. Louis, Breauna Morrow said she was 15 years old when one of her co-workers started making comments about her body and asked her, “Have you ever had white chocolate inside you?” According to the complaint, she notified her manager, who told her that she would “never win that battle.” In New Orleans, Tanya Harrel said that her supervisor hadn’t taken her seriously when a co-worker grabbed her buttocks. When another co-worker tried to have sex with her in the restaurant’s bathroom, she said, she was too discouraged to bother reporting it.

At the time of the May complaints, a spokesman for McDonald’s said that the company wouldn’t tolerate sexual misconduct, and was confident that the corporation’s franchisees took allegations of harassment seriously. But some of the employees who went on strike on Tuesday said that they haven’t seen anything change in the wake of the EEOC complaints.........................

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/19/you-will-hear-us-today-mcdonalds-workers-strike-to-protest-sexual-harassment/?utm_term=.bb90d5b9b106

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According to these workers, nothing has been done by the McDonald management about sexual harassment at work. Shame.