News

Multi-national Fast Food Chain, McDonald’s has entered into a Section 23 Agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in a decision that will have far reaching implications for franchisees and fast food staff across the UK.

Kaajal Nathwani, Partner and Head of Employment Law at Curwens, discussed McDonald’s decision on BBC News. McDonald’s had stated that they were seeking to assuage concerns about sexual harassment in the workplace and provide assurances to employees that their concerns will be adequately investigated and fairly determined.

Transcript

SHAUN LEY (BBC News anchor): What do you make of McDonald’s decision to sign the Agreement, does this in practical terms give employees anymore protection?

KAAJAL NATHWANI: In my view no it really doesn’t …so the Agreement they have entered into is a Section 23 Agreement and it’s a voluntary Agreement that they have agreed to enter into with the EHRC and it sets out sort of a framework that they are willing to commit to, to try and deal with sexual harassment in the workplace and actually prevent it taking place.

There are things that they have agreed to such as communicating zero tolerance, you know, of sexual harassment in the workplace, committing to training relating to sexual harassment, but really these are things that in an organisation of McDonald’s standing you would have expected that they would have already been doing already, irrespective of revising policies and procedures, I think it’s really all about what’s done on the ground and really are those policies and procedures in a framework they put into place accessible to employees - is there a safeguard for employees to go to a safe place and make these complaints to eradicate what is a fear of retribution and victimisation as a result.

SHAUN LEY: Just then in terms of the timing of this, the Union involved, the Bakers Food and Allied Workers, claim that they have received more than 1,000 complaints of sexual harassment from its members working in branches of McDonalds in the UK that was in 2019; we are now in the beginning of 2023.

I mean what do you make of given that there is clearly some kind of interaction happening with the equalities watchdog I just wonder what you make of that timetable.

KAAJAL NATHWANI: So, I think what has led to this sort of big lag time, is probably the influx of claims or influx of further complaints by individuals by Unions and by other means, perhaps initiating the early conciliation process with ACAS being involved and so that’s what’s led to the intervention by the watchdog here to actually try and say: “Look we are going to help you, we are going to put a framework in place to avoid the number of complaints increasing.”

I think the situation here is that it takes a few people to speak up. The timings as such with the rise of the Me Too movement there has been a little bit more confidence in employees being able to, you know, talk about their experiences and bring them to the fore and to make the relevant complaints.

SHAUN LEY: I wonder whether there is different with different kinds of companies in terms of how this works; presumably a lot of the sort of businesses in the fast food environment, well they may be big names but effectively they operate almost like a franchise so in a sense there is a local management and you really are… it’s the relationship with the local management. You must sometimes feel like you don’t really have anyone to complain to. Do you see what I mean? Whereas a big organisation or even in a small organisation but it is just that organisation you have others to go to.

KAAJAL NATHWANI: Yeah absolutely that’s the issue here. You will find that many of the perpetrators are individuals in a position of management or authority and those that are victims of the harassment are those that are managed by the perpetrators. They don’t know who to go to to complain, so I think what the watchdog has done now as part of this agreement is set the parameters down for how franchises will deal with this, the internal training that will be delivered to management levels of how to deal with this and putting structures in place that create a clear pathway for workers to be able to bring those complaints.

SHAUN LEY: Kaajal Nathwani of Curwens Head of Employment at Curwens thank you very much for talking to us about that.