More than 700 former McDonald’s staff members are taking legal action against the fast-food giant after allegations of harassment came to light.
The employees claimed managers oversaw a “toxic” work environment where teenage workers were sexually harassed. The McDonald’s sex for shifts scandal comes just one year after its boss in the UK Alistair Macrow promised to clean up behaviour across the fast-food chain’s restaurants.
One former employee , who first started working at McDonald’s as a teenager, claimed older staff placed bets on having sex with new starters. She and other ex-employees also claimed managers touched them inappropriately.
“It was soon clear the environment was really toxic,” she said. “I saw older male staff making bets on who could sleep with the new starters and had older guys making comments about my body.”
The employee claimed she was also “slapped on the bottom” by her manager after she bent down. One employee at a West Midlands branch quit her job in 2023, claiming she had been touched by managers and faced sexual harassment from customers.
Another former employee, who worked at the branch until 2023, told the BBC her manager would ask for sex in return for extra shifts, which she refused. She added: “You don’t expect it to happen. It was totally inappropriate.”
McDonald’s said it was treating the allegations seriously
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Image:
Photothek via Getty Images)
She claimed bosses told her to “suck it up” when she raised the issue and another female worker, aged 20, described how a male manager sent her topless pictures. Some staff members also reported how managers asked younger staff how many people they had previously had sex with.
And a third ex-employee, who worked at a Berkshire branch in 2022 when she was 16, said sexual harassment was commonplace. She added: “They’d grope stomach, waists, bums.” A male employee, who also used a fake name, left his job at a branch located in the south of England in February 2024. He added that if he had a sister or daughter, he “wouldn’t want them working in McDonald’s.”
According to The Sun, a McDonald’s spokesperson previously said after the scandal came to light: “Ensuring the 168,000 people that work in McDonald’s restaurants are safe is the most important responsibility for both us and our franchisees, and we have undertaken extensive work over the last year to ensure we have industry-leading practices in place to support this priority,” .
“Any incident of misconduct and harassment is unacceptable and subject to rapid and thorough investigation and action. Our relentless focus on eliminating all forms of harassment at McDonald’s is led by a newly created team and informed by the experience and guidance of external experts. We are confident that we are taking significant and important steps to tackle the unacceptable behaviours facing every organisation.”
The Mirror has contacted McDonald’s for comment.