EVERY day for two years, 16-year-old Matty* broke down in tears as he prepared for another shift at McDonald’s, where he was “degraded to feel like a worm”.
Faced with a “toxic” boss who allegedly turned a blind eye to sexual harassment and created a “circle of fear” while he bullied employees, the traumatised former worker paints a dark vision of life working at a UK branch of the fast food giant.
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McDonald’s faces a ‘sex for shifts’ stormCredit: PA
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Ex-McDonald’s teenage employee Shelby previously told how she was routinely harassed by colleaguesCredit: bbc news
Matty is far from alone, with McDonald’s facing a growing ‘sex for shifts’ legal case brought by 700 current and former workers, who claim venues are a “predators’ paradise”.
The employees, who were all between 16 and 19, faced a range of issues including harassment at more than 450 restaurants, which is nearly a third of the UK’s entire stock.
Among the claims are that sicko bosses took bets on which teen workers they could sleep with and inappropriately touched some staff.
Disturbingly, one employee* told the BBC her shift manager would even ask her for sex in return for extra shifts, which she refused.
The Sun has heard from ex-workers, the legal firm bringing the claims against McDonald’s and a trauma charity, all of whom condemn the burger chain’s troubling culture behind the scenes.
One former manager admits young, inexperienced staff are “f***ing like rabbits”, leaving bosses to act as pseudo-relationship counsellors, while Matty claims too many problems are “brushed over without care”.
He tells us: “For my first two years I had a horrible manager who bullied me. There was verbal abuse to the point where I used to cry before I went to work and sexual abuse was brushed over.
“He used to say, ‘You’re f***ing useless’ and things like that. It was degrading and made me and others feel like worms, rats or livestock, they wanted us to be robots.
“He would push me and used to elbow me out of the way, and did this on more than one occasion. I just accepted what happened because he was the top guy so I didn’t feel I could report it.
“He almost created a circle of fear and had all the other managers under his thumb, so you feared anything you said would get back to him. It was like a cabal.
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“He was in his mid-to-late 40s so he should have known better, he wasn’t someone who was 20 years old and just shot up the ranks. He’d been there for at least 20 years.
“Then there was one colleague who would slap everyone’s bums every morning when he came. It lasted more than a year and was brushed over, it was accepted because it happened every day.
“He would do it to 10 or 15 of us at a time – men, women, young, old – some would laugh it off, others wouldn’t make eye contact and look down, some pretended it never happened.
“If you said anything he made out like it was a joke and you were being unfairly upset. The managers all knew about it but never said anything
“One other sexual moment that sticks in my mind, is one shift manager who would send overtly sexual messages to a friend over the company work system.”
Centre of storm
McDonald’s has found itself at the centre of a storm again this week after hundreds of workers, between the ages of 16 and 19, came forward with claims of verbal, physical, sexual and discriminatory harassment.
In addition to the lawsuits by legal firm Leigh Day, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has received 300 reported incidents of harassment related to the fast-food giant since July 2023.
On Thursday, McDonald’s UK CEO Alistair Macrow was called to answer questions about the scandal at the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee.
Chair Liam Byrne accused Mr Macrow of allowing McDonald’s to “become a predators’ paradise”, arguing there was “a pattern of abuse” that show restaurants are “a hotbed of harassment”.
Mr Macrow denied this, while insisting claims are “abhorrent” and “unacceptable”, and said there is “no place for them in McDonald’s”.
These are the first jobs for a lot of young people, who are not well-versed in what is and isn’t acceptable in the world of work and you’d expect a massive company to treat you well
Mandy Bhattal, senior associate at Leigh Day
It followed scores of allegations including from young Rachel, not her real name, who alleged there was a “really toxic” environment that made her leave within a few months.
In a video testimony, she said: “I saw male staff, most of whom were older, making bets on who could sleep with the new starters, and had older guys making comments about my body.
“On one occasion I bent down, and the manager came behind me and slapped me on my bottom, I was 17 at the time, and this manager was at least in his 30s.”
Another damning claim came from Claire, not her real name, from the West Midlands, who said her boss asked for sex in exchange for extra shifts, which she refused.
They then allegedly told her to “suck it up” after complaining about being inappropriately touched by a manager and sexually harassed by customers.
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McDonald’s UK chief executive Alistair Macrow gave evidence in front of the Business and Trade Select Committee at the House of Commons, London, on TuesdayCredit: PA
Alan, not his real name, 19, told The Sun about “degrading and humiliating” verbal abuse he claims to have suffered at a branch in Scotland.
He said: “Colleagues use derogatory, homophobic slurs against me, sometimes to my face, mostly behind my back.
“I’ve spoken to my manager about it and he told me it was ‘just banter’. I didn’t feel listened to, I felt worthless. It hasn’t stopped in the year I’ve been there.
“It’s hard waking up every day knowing you’re going to work to deal with that over and over again without anyone doing anything.
“I don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve been trying to get a new job. I’ve applied for 40 but haven’t got a single interview. I want to work somewhere that takes homophobia seriously.”
‘Pestered for sex’
From the 700 cases taken by Leigh Day, they tell us there have been claims of workers being “repeatedly pestered for sex”, touched inappropriately and asked about their sexual history.
Alleged discrimination includes racist comments about “whether staff would steal from a company because of where they were from” and disabilities being branded “ridiculous”.
Mandy Bhattal, senior associate at Leigh Day, told The Sun she was “shocked by how widespread” the problem is. She adds: “Claiming it’s one or two bad apples doesn’t wash”.
It was degrading and made me and others feel like worms, rats or livestock, they wanted us to be robots
Ex-worker Matty
More than 450 restaurants have been implicated in the scandal, which is nearly a third of the 1,400-plus across the UK, and alleged patterns have emerged that span from “Plymouth to Edinburgh”.
Mandy tells us: “These are the first jobs for a lot of young people, who are not well-versed in what is and isn’t acceptable in the world of work and you’d expect a massive company to treat you well.
“Instead they are submitted to slurs against them, people have been reduced to tears on shift and not wanted to go back to work in a toxic environment.”
‘Power goes to their heads’
Not everyone believes the issues are completely clear cut, including former McDonald’s Operations Consultant David*, who spent nearly two decades with the chain.
He worked his way up from cooking the fries at 16 to running “a cluster of their busiest restaurants” in London.
“One of the unfortunate things is when you promote people to positions of authority not all of them have the emotional maturity to handle responsibility,” David tells us.
“Some abuse that position of trust. I’ve seen it through many organisations, not just at McDonald’s. Unfortunately, you can’t stop it, a d***head will always be a d***head.
“For some people, the power goes to their heads, the ego kicks in and the monster takes over. The most important thing is stamping it out and dealing with things quickly.
“When working with people you don’t fully know who they are or their character flaws. No one would willingly promote someone knowing they have bad character traits, that’s career suicide.”
David tells us was “extremely disappointed” reading the latest claims, which paints a picture of McDonald’s he “does not recognise”.
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More than 700 current and former staff members are suing McDonald’s over allegations of sexual abuseCredit: Alamy
However, he claims managing a branch is rarely easy because you are “very much dealing with kids” and have to become “an extended parent to them”.
David says: “It’s a difficult job. There are a lot of young people, who spend a lot of time with each other, and to be honest, while this isn’t politically correct, they are f***ing like rabbits.
“Then when things don’t work out, it ends up that there’s relationship counselling in the restaurant. It’s one of the hardest dynamics to manage because there’s such a huge social circle.
“It is disturbing, however, if there have been situations where managers have demanded people sleep with them for more shifts, that would be abhorrent.”
David believes part of the problem could be managers no longer “having their fingers on the pulse” and physically being on the shop floor.
For some people, the power goes to their heads, the ego kicks in and the monster takes over
Ex-manager David
He claims to have known every one of his 150 employees by name when he worked for the chain and suspects that no longer happens.
Another issue he pinpoints is franchising. McDonald’s refused to reveal how many of its UK restaurants were company-owned, but the worldwide figure is just seven per cent.
It’s estimated that 90 per cent in the UK are franchises, which David says is where “some of the problems could creep in”, because some of the franchisees aren’t “heavily involved” and are “further removed”.
He adds: “When I worked for them, company-run McDonald’s restaurants were run with an iron fist. There was little tolerance for deviation but with franchises, to a degree, you lose that control.
“The more a business expands the more diluted its training, resources and polices become. It gets weaker over a period of time.”
Despite the claims, David insists McDonald’s can provide “a brilliant career” or be “a fantastic stepping stone” for young people but he acknowledges they need to have a “duty of care”.
When claims from employees first emerged, McDonald’s admitted it had “fallen short” and “deeply apologised”, stating there was “simply no place for harassment, abuse, or discrimination” at the company.
Now, after more claims emerged this week, the UK boss Alistair Macrow was taken to task by MPs when speaking to the Business and Trade Select Committee in the House of Commons this week.
Of the recent allegations, he said they were “abhorrent, they are unacceptable and there is no place for them in McDonald’s”, adding there would be “no hiding place for bad actors”.
Mr Macrow noted that the company had fired 25 people and taken disciplinary action against 47, after investigating 75 sexual harassment allegations over the last 12 months.
‘All bark and no bite’
But worker Matty fears the CEO is “all bark and no bite” and notes that while a few flyers have gone up referencing ‘red flags’ to report, there has been no education drive.
All the workers and ex-workers that spoke to The Sun told us the accounts coming to light made them no longer feel alone, but call for a “greater duty of care” including background checks for managers due to them working with predominantly under-18s.
A McDonald’s spokesperson said: “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.”
The company added: “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.”
A spokesperson for the Equality and Human Rights Commission told The Sun they were “grateful to those who came forward to report incidents of harassment”.
They are “actively working with McDonald’s” regarding the “number of serious allegations raised about the company over the last year”.
They added: “We are confident that McDonald’s will take up our recommendations when these new amendments are announced, and our priority remains ensuring that McDonald’s improve their practices and that their staff are protected from sexual harassment.”
Katie Kempen, Chief Executive at the charity Victim Support, told The Sun: “No one should have to experience abuse and harassment at work.
“Companies must prioritise reforming toxic work environments and take swift action when abuse or harassment is reported, making sure they listen to and support their workers.”
*Names have been changed
If you have experienced abuse or harassment in the workplace, you can contact Victim Support, which operates a free 24/7 helpline and offers confidential support. You can call 0808 1689 111 or use the live chat at: www.victimsupport.org.uk/live-chat.