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McDonald's workers sue company for failing to protect them against violent customers

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November 25, 2019

Seventeen McDonald's employees who are employed at 13 Chicago-area locations of the chain have filed suit against the giant QSR franchise company claiming that McDonald's fails to adequately protect them from violence at the hands of customers. 

The suit, filed in Cook County, Illinois, states that McDonald's Chicago-area law enforcement respond to more than 20 police emergency calls from the brand's locations in and around the city every day, according to the Associated Press. The workers allege that the corporation fails to make in-store safeguards that might better protect employees from customers who are increasingly reported to turn violent on fast food workers as this website reported previously. 

In the suit, workers specify examples of such incident, including one that involved a customer urinating on a McDonald's employee and another where a customer beat an employee with a sign, the report said. Moreover, the suit claims that the problem is a systemic one for the chain that extends nationally. 

"McDonald's has failed, at a systemic level, to protect its workers from violence in the workplace," said the plaintiff's attorney, Danny Rosenthal, to the Associated Press. "Throughout the country, McDonald's workers are regularly threatened, assaulted and injured by customers."

In a statement released to the A.P., McDonald's said:

"McDonald's takes seriously its responsibility to provide and foster a safe working environment for our employees, and along with our franchisees, continue to make investments in training programs that uphold safe environments for customers and crew members."

Examples given in the suit of corporate practices and policies that fail to provide workers with adequate protection against customers who do become violent, included the brand's elimination of check-out counter barriers that might protect workers from customers physical attacks, as well as what the workers said was the company's failure to heed a "recommended practice" of using drive-thru windows that prevent customers from crawling into the location from their cars. 

QSRweb is still awaiting further comment from McDonald's.