Risk Management

EEOC sues McDonald’s franchise, charging teen worker harassment

Judy Greenwald

September 30, 2021 Reprints

Coverage Disputes Employment Practices More + Less -

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against a McDonald’s Corp. franchise that operates 22 restaurants in three states, charging it with allowing the sexual harassment of teenaged workers.

The agency said in a statement Thursday that Kingman, Arizona-based AMTCR Inc. and two of its units, which operate McDonald’s in Nevada, Arizona and California, allowed a class of male and female workers to be subjected to “egregious” sexual harassment.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas in EEOC v. AMTCR Inc. et al. alleges that since at least 2017, AMTCR was aware of, perpetuated and tolerated sexual harassment by supervisors, managers and co-workers at various McDonald’s restaurants that was mainly focused on young teenage employees.

The EEOC statement said the harassment included frequent unwanted groping and touching, offensive comments and gestures regarding male genitalia, unwelcome sexual advances, sexual ridicule, intimidation and insults.

The EEOC said the company failed to adequately respond to multiple complaints, ignoring and downplaying them instead. It said many workers found the working situations so intolerable they had no choice but to quit.

The company is charged with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

AMTCR’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

The EEOC said last week that a New York restaurant group has agreed to pay $125,000 to settle a lawsuit it filed against a restaurant group that charged one of its operation’s head chefs with sexual harassment.