10 Workers Sue Virginia McDonald's for Racial Discrimination

“There are too many black people in the store,” is just one of the comments alleged in the recent lawsuit against McDonald’s.

Multiple Virginia workers have filed a lawsuit after claiming they were wrongly fired and replaced with a mostly white staff. It goes on to document sexual harassment accusations as well.

The ten employees, including nine African Americans and one Hispanic, are suing McDonald’s and Michael Simon, the owner of Soweva Co, the company that franchises the locations that are under speculation. Simon is accused of assigning white store managers to his locations on purpose and replacing black employees with white ones.

In a statement at the time of the firings, Simon denied that race was a factor, according to The Huffington Post. Simon said his company “has a strict policy of prohibiting any form of discrimination or harassment in hiring, termination or any other aspect of employment.”

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Two white store managers are particularly under fire for allegedly making racial comments.

The lawsuit alleges one McDonald’s store manager would regularly say “there are too many black people in the store” and it was “too dark in the store” in a location where the staff consisted of primarily black workers.

In one instance, the same manager is accused of saying “it’s dark in here and needs more lighting” and another store manager allegedly responded with “Yeah, we’ve got to do some hiring.”

According to South Boston News & Record, 17 employees were fired between three locations — all of which are franchised by Defendant Simon. The majority of those workers are African American and allegedly they were told that they didn’t fit the profile that the franchise was looking for.

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“We asked McDonald’s corporate to help us get our jobs back, but the company told us to take our concerns to the franchisee – the same franchisee that just fired us,” Pamela Marable, one of the fired workers, said in a statement.

McDonald’s Standards Business Code of Conduct states that the company, including franchises, provides equal treatment and opportunity with regard to race or color.

More complaints in the lawsuit say that the supervisors, “disciplined African-American employees for rule infractions that were forgiven when committed by white employees; inappropriately touched female employees on their legs and buttocks; sent female employees sexual pictures; and solicited sexual relations from female employees.”

This is not the first time McDonald’s has made headlines for company issues. Dozen of complaints and charges were noted for improving wages and working conditions in December by the National Labor Relations Board.

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Photo Credit: McDonalds.com