TAMPA Two McDonalds employees were fired after they filed a federal discrimination complaint in a Florida Intermediate District court, accusing a manager of being racist against black workers.
The lawsuit, filed in Tampa in July, alleged that the general manager of the company-owned Lakeland sites had cut the hours of black workers while maintaining those of other workers, assigned black workers to menial cleaning duties outside of the of their job descriptions, ignored the demands of black workers. leave in favor of others and make racist comments about black customers and employees. After being exposed to COVID-19, two workers involved in the trial said they had returned from quarantine to be fired, according to their lawyers, who filed an amendment at the trial on Tuesday.
The fast food giant said the decision to fire the employees was separated from the ongoing lawsuit.
McDonalds is committed to leading with values and does not tolerate retaliation, “McDonalds said in a statement.” The allegations that employees have been fired for any reason related to an ongoing litigation are categorically false.
The amended lawsuit accuses the fast food chain of sacking workers as another example of unfair treatment and a direct response to the lawsuit. Monica Scott, 34, a Polk County resident, was fired the day she returned to work after a COVID-19 leave last month, according to lawyer Eve Cervantez.
She was unable to get into work one day due to a car problem, Cervantez said on a video conference. As you can imagine, McDonalds doesn’t normally fire employees for car issues.
Scott was fired on September 27. Augustus Gus “Moody, 33, was fired on September 17 for alleged insubordination,” according to the lawsuit. He says Moody was not insubordinate but set up for failure and writes for things like having a missing name tag while other employees weren’t violated for the same things. Moody has also had to take two separate statutory holidays in recent months due to exposure to the coronavirus.
They are seeking to be reinstated, Cervantez said. They would like to return to work at McDonalds if McDonalds treated them properly.
Also on Tuesday, McDonalds employees in Rock Island, Ill. Filed their own lawsuit against the company with allegations similar to those exposed in the Florida case. Although the cases are unrelated to the court, lawyers for both cases are working together.
Florida is therefore not an isolated incident, but rather symptomatic of a pattern or practice of the failure of McDonalds corporate executives to tackle pervasive racism and anti-Black sentiment across the country. organization, says the Florida trial.
Selynda Middlebrook, one of the Illinois plaintiffs, told Tuesday’s press conference that she was called a waste of space that shouldn’t exist. “This lawsuit also alleges that managers called black employees and ghetto customers lazy and smelly” at the Rock Island site. The Florida lawsuit says the director of Lakeland said black people always wanted free stuff, “black people are aggressive and try to fight and all they want is to smoke weed.”
McDonalds said in July it was investigating the complaints.
McDonalds workers held a trailer at the 5525 Walt Loop Road restaurant named in the Tuesday afternoon lawsuit, similar to a Fight for $ 15 minimum wage trailer held at a McDonald’s in Tampa last month.
