"McDonald’s harassment and bullying cases ‘truly horrific’, says UK boss", November 14 2023

The UK boss of McDonald’s has told MPs that widespread cases of sexual harassment and bullying of workers at its fast food shops are “truly horrific” and that the chain was receiving one to two complaints a week about sexual harassment.

McDonald’s, which has 1,450 outlets and employs close to 180,000 people in the UK, most of them young people under 25, is under huge pressure to stamp out widespread sexual harassment and assault, racism and bullying, after an investigation by the BBC, which spoke to more than 100 current and recent McDonald’s workers, some as young as 17.

Alistair Macrow, the chief executive of McDonald’s UK & Ireland, told MPs on the Commons business and trade committee: “The cases are absolutely horrendous. What I’d like to be clear about is that we will tackle them and make sure that we do everything we can to eradicate them from the business. Nothing is more important.”

He said that, since July, McDonald’s had received 407 complaints “of all types”. Of those, 157 had been fully investigated and 75 had led to disciplinary action, including 18 dismissals. There were 17 confirmed cases of sexual harassment and 27 under investigation, as well as nine bullying cases and one related to racism. He said some had been reported to the police by individuals, but did not know how many.

[...]

.....Nearly nine in 10 branches are run by franchisees. Macrow said no franchisees had lost their contracts as a result of the sexual harassment cases.

[...]

Last Thursday, the law firm Leigh Day launched legal action against McDonald’s on behalf of a group of the chain’s workers.