McDonald’s harassment and bullying cases ‘truly horrific’, says UK boss | McDonald’s

The UK boss of McDonald’s said widespread cases of sexual harassment and bullying at its fast food shops were “truly horrific” and that the company was doing everything it could to eradicate them.

McDonald’s, which has 1,450 outlets and employs close to 180,000 people in the UK, is under huge pressure to improve its work culture, after an investigation by the BBC into allegations of sexual assault, harassment, racism and bullying. It 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”, 75 of which had led to disciplinary action. There were 17 confirmed cases of sexual harassment and 27 under investigation. He said there was no particular hotspot in the UK. “There is a wide distribution of where cases have occurred,” he added.

Macrow set up an investigations unit in late July after the allegations were revealed, and said then that the unit would refer the most serious cases to a third-party legal team staffed with “specialist investigators”.

Workers at McDonald’s have made complaints “in every shop” across London, according to the head of the Bakers, Food and Allied Worker’s’ Union.

Speaking to the committee earlier on Tuesday, Ian Hodson, the national president of the union, said the union had received 1,000 complaints and had spoken to people “in every shop” in the capital. He said they reported incidents of being groped, inappropriate language and treatment. “It was common and it was normal, which obviously it shouldn’t be,” Hodson said.

Most workers are not directly employed by the company because McDonald’s uses a franchise system, which means outlets are run by individual operators that employ the staff.

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