{"id":364372,"date":"2018-06-07T06:33:38","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T05:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/my-fast-food-nightmare\/"},"modified":"2018-06-07T06:33:38","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T05:33:38","slug":"my-fast-food-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/my-fast-food-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"My Fast Food Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three years ago, when my grandmother fell ill, I chose to delay my studies to work full time at\u00a0McDonald\u2019s to pay for her prescriptions and medical care.<\/p>\n

I knew at the time that my starting pay of $7.45 an hour wouldn\u2019t be enough to live on. I even knew that I\u2019d have to resort to other measures \u2014 like selling my plasma \u2014 to try to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t know that I was signing up to be sexually harassed and assaulted at work, with managers who would only pile on when I asked for help.<\/p>\n

My ordeal began when a co-worker began touching me inappropriately. While I was washing dishes, checking the schedule in the crew room, or just walking by, he would grab my crotch, my breasts, or my backside. Once he forcibly moved my hand to his crotch when I refused a request to touch him. On at least one occasion, he said \u201cyou want it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he touched me against my will, I felt completely exposed, as if I had no skin. I felt like I was outside of my own body, watching it happen.<\/p>\n

But when I asked my shift managers to help, they did worse than nothing. One of them suggested the co-worker and I were romantically involved and that the touching was consensual. The other suggested that I was probably giving the co-worker \u201csex appeal,\u201d and that we should just take it to the \u201cnext level.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that I felt helpless to make him stop. I was uncomfortable, embarrassed, and afraid to go to work, but I needed the money too much to quit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo: Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I took three days off and got back into uniform. When that co-worker eventually left\u00a0McDonald’s\u00a0for good, I thought I could start to feel safe again. But that feeling was short-lived. Soon, another employee forced me into the men\u2019s bathroom and tried to have sex with me.<\/p>\n

Because my initial complaints had been ignored, I stayed quiet about that incident \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n

I recently joined with\u00a0McDonald’s\u00a0cooks and cashiers across nine cities to file charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Just like me, many of these women were mocked, ignored, or even fired when they complained about degrading and frightening behavior by co-workers or supervisors.<\/p>\n

With the support of the TIME\u2019S UP Legal Defense Fund, we\u2019re speaking out to hold\u00a0McDonald\u2019s accountable for allowing this abusive behavior.<\/p>\n

#MeToo has put the spotlight on the sexual harassment of women in Hollywood and other high-power industries, but workplace sexual harassment is also widespread for women like me in the fast-food industry \u2014 and companies like\u00a0McDonald\u2019s are still turning a blind eye.<\/p>\n

I now know that\u00a040 percent<\/a><\/u>\u00a0of women working in fast-food have been sexually harassed on the job, and that one in five of them have faced retaliation for complaining.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, a series of other workers filed similar charges against\u00a0McDonald’s, but I don’t see that anything has changed. As one of the country\u2019s largest employers,\u00a0McDonald\u2019s can use its enormous power and influence to guarantee safe and dignified workplaces for all employees.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never felt more powerless than when I was sexually harassed and assaulted on the job. But I\u2019ve never felt more powerful than today. By standing up and speaking out, I\u2019m hoping\u00a0McDonald\u2019s will listen and make changes so that no woman will have to experience what I\u2019ve been through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

The post My Fast Food Nightmare<\/a> appeared first on OtherWords<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, when my grandmother fell ill, I chose to delay my studies to work full time at\u00a0McDonald\u2019s to pay for her prescriptions and medical care. I knew at the time that my starting pay of $7.45 an hour wouldn\u2019t be enough to live on. I even knew that I\u2019d have to resort to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":364373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-364372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}