Ten former McDonald's workers in Virginia are suing the company for
racism, sexual harassment, and racially based mass firings in three restaurants owned by franchisee Soweva Co. The nine African-American and one Latino workers say that the harassment they faced involved supervisors who:
... demeaned African American workers; often complained that ‘there are too many black people in the store;’ called African-American workers ‘bitch,’ ‘ghetto,’ and ‘ratchet;’ called Hispanic workers ‘dirty Mexican;’ disciplined African-American employees for rule infractions that were forgiven when committed by white employees; inappropriately touched female employees on their legs and buttocks; sent female employees sexual pictures; and solicited sexual relations from female employees
The mistreatment workers faced
didn't end at harassment, according to the lawsuit. When Soweva took over the restaurants, the majority of workers were black. That didn't last.
Soweva's owner, Michael Simon, explained to workers that "the ratio was off in each of the stores" and that he just wanted "the ratio to be equal." Soweva's supervisors were blunt, telling employees that it was "too dark" in the restaurants, and that they were going to hire different workers because they "need to get the ghetto out of the store." Before implementing the plan, one supervisor said to the other, "now we can get rid of the niggers and the Mexicans."
Soweva then hired a bunch of white people and fired a bunch of black and Latino people. In a test of the National Labor Relations Board's
decision to treat McDonald's as a joint employer with its franchisees,
the lawsuit targets not just Soweva but McDonald's as responsible for working conditions.
“We asked McDonald’s corporate to help us get our jobs back, but the company told us to take our concerns to the franchisee – the same franchisee that just fired us,” plaintiff Pamela Marable, who was fired in May from one of the stores, said in a prepared statement. “McDonald’s closely monitors everything we do, from the speed of the drive-through line, to the way we smile and fold customers’ bags – but when we try to tell the company that we’re facing discrimination, they ignore us and say that it’s not their problem.”
Up until now, McDonald's has been able to have its cake and eat it, too, telling franchise operators how to schedule and pay their workers, how workers do every task, how they dress, and more, then turning around and claiming that the franchisees rather than the international corporation are responsible for anything wrong with the working conditions. This lawsuit could be part of dismantling that system of shifting blame and avoiding responsibility.