Skip to main content
NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
McDonald’s workers speak out against sexual harassment and low pay

IMAGINE getting groped and fondled on the job, twice in one month, by two different male coworkers — and your supervisors turn a deaf ear. So much so that you’re forced to take three weeks off work without pay to try to recover.

That’s what happened last year to Tanya Harrel, an African-American McDonald’s worker in New Orleans and one of 10 women of colour forced to file federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints against the fast-food giant in late May.

And two days later, McDonald’s workers took their cases — against sexual harassment, against low pay and against company labour law-breaking — to McDonald’s shareholders too.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Starbucks Workers United
Workers' Rights / 1 October 2025
1 October 2025

Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR

Boeing workers wave picket signs as they strike after union members voted to reject a contract offer near the company's factory in Everett, Washington, September 15, 2024
Features / 7 August 2025
7 August 2025

This strike is about pay and conditions, says CAMERON HARRISON – but it also shows workers have the power to disrupt the mightiest war machine on Earth

Cristina-Georgiana Ioanitescu, professional chauffeur and pr
International Women's Day 2025 / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
JANE WRIGHT talks to App Drivers and Couriers Union members and activists about their experience of biased apps, sexist customers and lack of toilet facilities while driving the streets of Britain’s cities
UNION-BUSTING: Protesters against Elon Musk on Tuesday outsi
Features / 6 February 2025
6 February 2025
The US president has cancelled all federal union contracts as ‘un-American,’ saying ‘It’s our dream to have everyone work in the private sector,’ writes MARK GRUENBERG