Former Del Taco worker files sexual harassment suit against fast-food chain | US news

Del Taco, the second largest Mexican fast-food chain in the US, has been hit with fresh claims of firing staff members after they made sexual harassment accusations.

The restaurant operation, which has 592 locations in 15 states, is already under a three-year companywide consent decree with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from December 2020. The decree is part of a settlement over a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and retaliation against female employees.

Now, a new lawsuit filed on 15 December alleges Del Taco violated the consent decree in retaliating against 24-year-old Daisy Rose Spradlin. She worked at a Del Taco in Granada Hills, California for about a year when she was suspended and then terminated after reporting sexual harassment and sexual battery to her manager and human resources.

In October 2022, Spradlin worked a graveyard shift alone with a new line cook. She had just been promoted to shift manager in September 2022, but never received a pay increase that was supposed to correlate with the promotion.

Throughout the shift, the new cook made sexual comments, telling her, “you’re so hot”, and “it’s so hard not to stare at you”. During the shift, he hugged her from behind while she was doing dishes and Spradlin yelled at him to stop. A while later, Spradlin was moving boxes in the walk-in refrigerator when he came up behind her and grabbed her. She yelled at him to get away, but the conduct continued to escalate. He then cornered her, grabbed her again and made sexually explicit comments.

In the early morning, when the store manager arrived, Spradlin attempted to report the sexual harassment but was brushed off repeatedly until she clocked out and went to the bathroom to cry before leaving work.

Then she began receiving texts, photos and videos from the cook of himself, his private parts, of him performing sexual acts, along with sexually explicit comments.

Spradlin went back to Del Taco the same day to report the sexual harassment to her manager, who pushed back, complaining about a shortage of workers, and tried to discourage her from making a report. The manager told her he did not want to see the messages that had been sent to her and not to send them to human resources.

“I felt like I just didn’t have a voice. I felt like when I voiced my concerns to him and to HR about what happened, he didn’t listen, HR didn’t listen to me,” said Spradlin in an interview. “The retaliation started after the employee sexually harassed me.”

After reporting the sexual harassment, Spradlin continued receiving harassing messages. Over the course of her next shifts, she was sent home early, even though she said she needed the work hours.

Spradlin then went to Del Taco with her father and boyfriend, pleading with the manager to take action on the complaint. The manager yelled at them, saying he didn’t want anything to do with it.

In calls with Del Taco’s human resources about the sexual harassment, Spradlin reported being intimidated and experiencing hostility from one of Del Taco’s human resources regional managers.

“It didn’t seem like they were handling it because she would reverse the question against me. I would tell her this individual put his hands on me and she said, ‘Did you put your hands on him?’ And I said, no, I’m voicing my complaint to you,” said Spradlin. “She was just cutting me off. She didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I felt like they were turning it against me and not looking at this employee.”

After reporting her complaint to human resources, Spradlin was first suspended, and then shortly terminated. No reason was provided to her in either situation. After her termination, Spradlin filed a police report for sexual battery. She emphasized the stress, anxiety and detrimental effect on her mental health these experiences have had on her.

“The reason why I want to have a voice for all of this is because a lot of employees, like myself, are getting sexually harassed and I know that they’re afraid to come forward and speak up,” added Spradlin. “The sexual harassment needs to stop and it should not be tolerated.”

Workers in the fast-food industry have reported high rates of sexual harassment. A 2016 survey found two in five women working in fast food report experiencing sexual harassment on the job. A 2021 survey found 71 percent of women in the restaurant business have experienced sexual harassment at work, the highest of any industry.

The EEOC receives more harassment complaints from the restaurant industry than any other, despite numerous multimillion dollar settlements over sexual harassment and retaliation at fast-food corporations such as McDonald’s and Burger King.

A spokesperson for Del Taco said in an email, “Del Taco is aware of the suit that was recently filed in Los Angeles county superior court. Del Taco has zero tolerance for harassment or retaliation of any kind. Per company policy, Del Taco cannot provide any further comment on ongoing legal activity.”