Workers who are underpaid are all too often exploited and abused in other ways—after all, their employers know they’re vulnerable and need the paycheck. So we should be shocked, but not too surprised, by the contents of sexual harassment complaints against McDonald’s that the Fight for $15 has filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
Cycei Monae, a McDonald’s worker in Flint, Michigan, said a manager showed her a picture of his genitals and said he wanted to “do things” to her, according to a complaint provided by Fight for $15. Corporate officials ignored her complaints, Monae said on a phone call with reporters on Wednesday.
In another complaint, a worker in Folsom, California, said a supervisor offered her $1,000 for oral sex.
Thirteen of the complaints were by women, and two were by men, said Fight for $15, which the Service Employees International Union formed in 2012.
Expect McDonald’s to once again fall back on its excuse that it can’t possibly control anything about what franchisees do to their workers, even as it controls every other aspect of how franchise restaurants operate. That control is why the National Labor Relations Board has said McDonald’s should be treated as a joint employer of workers in franchise restaurants.
Issues like sexual harassment are why the Fight for $15 isn’t just about $15 an hour pay—workers say they’re fighting for “$15 and a union.” A union could represent workers facing harassment and give them power in numbers and tools to fight back. This is a fight more broadly for power and respect. Money is part of that, but it’s not the whole deal.
This article originally appeared at DailyKOS.com on October 5, 2016. Reprinted with permission.
Laura Clawson is a Daily Kos contributing editor since December 2006. Labor editor since 2011.
