The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund (Defense Fund), known for providing legal assistance to victims of sexual misconduct, recently started targeting McDonald’s restaurants to pursue sexual harassment claims. On May 21, 2019, the Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the fast-food workers coalition Fight for $15
announced the filing of 25 new sexual harassment and gender discrimination cases against McDonald’s restaurants.
These new complaints come on the heels of ten harassment and discrimination charges filed against McDonald’s restaurants with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in May 2018, and a September 2018 strike where thousands of McDonald’s workers in 10 cities protested the company’s “widespread” misconduct. The Defense Fund states in a letter to top McDonald’s executives that the company failed to adequately address sexual harassment claims filed with the EEOC one year ago.
Of the 25 new cases, 20 were filed with the EEOC, three were filed as civil rights law suits, and two suits stemmed from previous allegations. Current and former McDonald’s workers argue that these allegations include gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment in the workplace, and retaliation for reporting incidents of harassment.
McDonald’s workers are calling for McDonald’s to provide employees better protection against sexual assault and harassment in the workplace by providing comprehensive training for employees and managers, guaranteeing fair and effective processes to report harassment, as well as ensuring employees do not face retaliation for reporting misconduct. These claims are not unique to McDonald’s, however, as workers in the restaurant industry are exposed to sexual harassment at a higher rate than workers in other industries.
The chief executive of McDonald’s, Steve Easterbrook, addressed these concerns in a letter to Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) on Monday, May 20th. He said that the chain has been working with the anti-sexual violence organization, RAINN, to update and improve its policies on harassment by making better efforts to inform employees of their rights, providing training to restaurant owners and general managers and in the next few months will provide harassment training for crew members and launch a reporting hotline. Illinois politicians seem to be wary of relying upon restaurant owners to establish adequate anti-harassment policies, as they proposed a law to require anti-harassment training take place in restaurants. That law, the Restaurant Anti-Harassment Act, is currently under review in the House Rules Committee and is expected to be effective on January 1, 2020.
Although the Defense Fund is currently targeting McDonald’s restaurants exclusively, its focus could soon change to other franchised restaurants, and the restaurant industry as a whole could experience more harassment-related claims as a result of the Defense Fund’s work.
As a restaurant or franchise owner, it is important to ensure that the directors and managers of your company know how to handle sexual harassment complaints and that your employee handbook has clear policies outlining your procedures for how to address workplace sexual harassment. If you have any questions about your sexual harassment policy or how to address employee allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace, please contact Marcus & Boxerman at (312) 216-2720 or firm@marcusboxerman.com.
y 15, 2019, Representative Ann M. Williams (D) introduced 
In February, Governor JB Pritzker signed a piece of legislation that will set Illinois on track to reach a statewide minimum wage of $15.00 by 2025. To mitigate the effect this change has on small employers, the law allows employers with 50 or fewer employees to claim a tax credit for 25% of the cost of the increase in 2020 and gradually phases out over the next several years.
Chicago City Council have enacted or modified several laws and ordinances that affect employers. Sifting through the specific legal language can be tricky, so we’ve summarized the most important changes that are relevant to employers.
In a prior blog post, we advised employers about a once little-known Illinois law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The BIPA imposes numerous restrictions on how private entities collect, retain, disclose, and destroy biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, voiceprints, retina or iris scans, and scans of hand or face geometry. Businesses most often collect this information from employees, but advances in technology have caused a recent increase in the collection of consumers’ biometric information.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) tip pooling regulations. The proposed changes would roll back the Obama administration’s 2011 regulations that prohibited employers from distributing tips to anyone other than front-of-the-house staff who earned them. Following the 2011 Obama administration regulations, the DOL has maintained that tips earned by front-of-the-house employees–including servers, bartenders, and bussers–are the property of the employees, and that employers may not mandate that they be shared with back-of-the-house employees such as cooks and dishwashers. The current rules also allow for a “tip credit,” whereby employers can pay tipped employees less than the federal minimum wage, as long as tips make up the difference.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is scrutinizing employee handbooks that violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law that protects an employees’ collective bargaining and organizing rights. The NLRB looks for workplace rules that restrict—or could be construed to restrict—employees’ right to engage with each other, to organize (including forming, joining or assisting labor unions) and to take other collective action. The language employers use in their employee handbooks is key, because provisions meant to protect the employer may violate the NLRA. The NLRB recommends employers use detailed wording, sufficient context and clarifying examples to prevent misinterpretation.
In a nearly unanimous vote by the Cook County Board on October 11th, the Cook County sweetened beverage tax has been repealed. Passed in early August 2017, the controversial tax was only in effect for two months before lawmakers decided to retire it. Proponents of the tax reasoned the tax is an effective way to fight obesity and other related health conditions, while also generating income for the county. Opponents of the tax argued that it damaged small businesses and led to plummeting store sales, as customers simply went across county lines to purchase beverages subject to the tax. Large corporations including PepsiCo and Coca-Cola spent millions of dollars fighting the tax. Lawmakers now have until the end of November to adjust the Cook County budget to account for the $200 million of revenue the County estimates the tax would have brought in. The repeal goes into effect December 1, 2017.