"McDonald's faces class action over 'pervasive sexual harassment", 13 April 2020

McDonald’s Corp has been hit with a class action lawsuit accusing it of subjecting female employees in its corporate-owned fast-food restaurants in Florida to widespread sexual harassment.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday in federal court in Chicago, says the company fostered a climate of “severe or pervasive sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including groping, physical assaults, and sexually-charged verbal comments.”...

McDonald’s said in a statement that it was committed to ensuring workers were not subject to sexual harassment....

...The plaintiffs, McDonald’s employee Jamelia Fairley and former employee Ashley Reddick, are seeking to represent a class of female employees of Florida’s more than 100 corporate-owned, non-franchise McDonald’s locations. They are asking for $500 million in compensatory damages and additional punitive damages.

Fairley and Reddick said in their complaint that McDonald’s failed to provide training to prevent sexual harassment and shuffled serial harassers from one location to another without consequence....

...Management knew of the harassment of both women but failed to take appropriate action, the lawsuit said.

Sexual harassment allegations have plagued McDonald’s since 2016, when it first faced a wave of complaints filed with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.