This is for my class called Journalism. This is the first unit called Text. In this unit, we investigated why and how written journalism has been used to connect us today with print in the newspaper and virtually on TV and online. We took on the role of a newspaper journalist, practicing both the skills of observation as well as precise writing. For our AP, we had to write a newspaper article on something newsworthy that happened in our neighborhood. I did my newspaper article on the McDonald’s protest strike that happened because of sexual harassment in the workplace. The thing I liked most about my project was learning more about a topic that I did not know anything about--sexual harassment at McDonald's. The aspect I had the most trouble with was getting customers of McDonald's to interview. I overcame this by interviewing two customers who happen to be my classmates.
McDonald’s workers and some social activists staged noisy two-hour demonstrations in Chicago and nine other cities nationwide at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 2018, to protest sexual harassment in the workplace. The Chicago protest took place outside McDonald’s new corporate headquarters in the Fulton Market area of River West.
According to NBC News, protesters like Breauna Morrow, 15, an employee at the St. Louis demonstration, came armed with specific examples. She quoted a male employee who said to her, “You have a nice body, have you ever had white chocolate inside you?” Morrow said she reported the incident to a manager who allegedly told her, “You will never win that one.”
As passionate as the Chicago headquarters protesters were, it appears that interest and knowledge of the event were uneven among Chicagoland McDonald’s workers as a whole. Four McDonald’s restaurants in the Lincoln Park area were visited on Wednesday, September 19, 2018. No employees interviewed showed much concern. Only a few had even heard about the Tuesday event.
McDonald’s spokeswoman Andrea Abate told the Chicago Tribune through a statement, “We have strong policies, procedures, and training in place specifically designed to prevent sexual harassment. To ensure we are doing all that can be done, we have engaged experts in the areas of prevention and response including RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), to evolve our policies so everyone who works at McDonald’s does so in a secure environment every day.”
The McDonald’s protests appear to be the latest example of the growing strength and awareness of the #MeToo movement that sprang up earlier in the year surrounding sexual harassment in the workplace.
When asked about their feelings toward the protests and the protesters, several McDonald’s customers expressed mild to strong support. GCE High School student AA explained, “I go to McDonald’s a lot, and I really like their business. It depends on how they handle this situation. I want to support them, but it all depends on how they deal with this.”
Another student, CG, had a stronger opinion. “I think it's good that people are striking because they're doing it for a good reason. As long as the corporation or the company leaders do their job and ensure the workers’ safety, I think that the strike was a success.” Asked if she would go back to McDonald’s, she also added, “It's a yes and no. No, because I think their food is generally bad, so I don’t go very often. Yes, because my small amount of business still helps some paychecks.”
Then she reflected, “I think if they had like a seminar for employees on what is appropriate behavior in the workplace that would be good. And also I think if the supervisors actually did their jobs and actually supervised there wouldn’t be any sexual harassment.”
It remains to be seen if the protests will create any lasting changes at McDonald’s. If nothing else they were the first step to bringing awareness of sexual harassment in the McDonald’s workplace to the attention of management and the public.
WORK CITED
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