The allegations are horrific.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit, the restaurant's general manager engaged in egregious and persistent sexual harassment towards young female employees for nearly two years, including:
- Commenting about performing sex acts with employees, such as asking one female employee who has just suffered a miscarriage if she was ready for him "to put another one in her," and telling another pregnant employee that he "should have been your child's daddy.”
- Offering to pay employees for sex acts.
- Secluding employees in private spaces such as the walk-in cooler, back office, or bathroom, and then rubbing up against their bodies, buttocks, and breasts, and grabbing one teenage employee's genitals over her pants.
- Masturbating in front of a female employee as she walked into the restroom.
Worse, the EEOC further alleges that the regional manager and director of operations ignored complaints by several employees, including assistant managers, which allowed the sexual harassment to continue.
"Sexual harassment in the work environment damages an employee's perspective of the working world," said Brooke López, trial attorney in the EEOC's Dallas District Office. "It is especially damaging when you have to combat this harassment by your boss as a teenager in one of your first jobs. That is unacceptable."
That gross misconduct coupled with senior management ignoring employees' complaints makes this Jack(a$$) in the Box a worthy nominee for the Worst Employer of 2023.