IUF General Secretary Sue Longley participated in a hearing held Wednesday, September 7, in which these workers told their stories of sexual and workplace harassment at McDonald’s, one of the leading fast food restaurant chains, with thousands of franchises around the world.

In 2020, independent press media in France, the Médiapart portal, and the urban information site Street Press published the outcome of a months-long investigation that involved interviewing dozens of McDonald’s workers after hearing reports from a group of the chain’s employees in France.

The investigation found all sorts of abuse: racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexual harassment, threats, arbitrary dismissals, and a dictatorial management system that enables impunity for those reported.

In May of that same year, the European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture, and Tourism Industries (EFFAT), the IUF, and the Service Employees International Union (U.S. and Canada) filed a complaint with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) accusing McDonald’s of systematic sexual harassment in its restaurants around the world.

The complaint lays bare the failure of McDonald’s global management to address sexual harassment and gender-based violence in its restaurants in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among other countries.

It details a pattern of sexual harassment and gender violence, ranging from lewd comments to physical attacks, and the indifference shown by the company, which fails to take effective action to deal with or put a stop to such aggressions.

“We have brought hundreds of sexual harassment cases to the attention of McDonald’s, but it has, shamefully, responded by closing the door on us,” Sue Longley said in the hearing at the European Parliament, which has taken up the concern for the serious situation faced by thousands of the chain’s workers around the world.

“Workers at McDonald’s have for years been alerting about sexual harassment and gender violence there, but the multinational corporation has not taken satisfactory measures to address the problem,” Longley stressed.