Judge grants class action status for lawsuit against Mason area McDonald’s where manager allegedly harassed dozens of female workers

A federal judge has granted class-action lawsuit status against two McDonald’s franchise owners.

The lawsuit alleged that a manager at the owners’ store on N. Cedar Street, Mason, allegedly molested dozens of women workers for years.

Gillian Thomas, an attorney with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Projects, is representing the plaintiffs. She said the number of women in the class was about 100.

Plaintiffs testified that the manager, Sean Banks, made sexual jokes, commented on the bodies of his subordinates, fingered their breasts, crotch and buttocks, and pressured them to have sex.

Thomas said Banks supervisors did almost nothing to stop him from exploiting restaurant workers. She said this particular case was “by far the worst” of all the sexual harassment lawsuits in which she has been involved.

“The youth of many of his victims was a hallmark of his molestation,” she said. “He was referred to by people as the ‘Minor Violator’ and was known to be fixated on girls. But he also molested women much older than him. So really, every single shift that guy worked was an exercise in verbal harassment and physical harassment. “

Thomas said the McDonald’s company was named co-defendant when the lawsuit was filed, but the judge dismissed the company from the case.

She found that there are dozens of similar sexual harassment lawsuits against McDonald’s restaurant workers across the country. “If we know that there is a systemic problem, there should be a systemic solution.”

McDonald’s said in an April press release that franchise owners would be required to introduce sexual harassment prevention and response standards from January 2022. But Thomas says the company won’t show her the standards, and she fears that it’s more of a publicity move than anything essential.

“The company cares much more about the profits it makes from Big Macs and fries and shakes – and it pretty much doesn’t care what happens to the people who make those products for them,” she said.

McDonald’s did not directly respond to inquiries from Michigan Radio. The franchise owner’s attorney says he chose not to comment on the lawsuit.

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