McDonald's sues sacked CEO Steve Easterbrook, accuses him of hiding sexual relationships with employees
Fast-food giant McDonald’s has decided to go after its former CEO Steve Easterbrook who was sacked last November over an inappropriate relationship with an employee. The company sued the disgraced former top executive accusing him on Monday, August 10, of hiding sexual relationships with three other employees and destroying evidence.
In a message to the employees, McDonald’s current president and CEO Chris Kempczinski said the company does not tolerate behavior from employees that does not reflect its values. Kempczinski replaced Easterbrook following his unceremonious exit after a stint that started in March 2015 and produced phenomenal results for the company.
McDonald’s is suing Easterbrook for the whopping $40 million he took as an exit payout. In 2018, Easterbrook received a total compensation of nearly $16 million last year, including a base salary of $1.34 million. The latest lawsuit has put the negative focus back on the allegations of sexual harassment at the Chicago-based company and its 39,000 restaurants. According to Associated Press, more than 50 workers have filed separate sexual harassment charges against the food giant with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or in state courts. Kempczinski also told the employees that he is committed to encouraging employees to share information about any behavior that is not in alignment with McDonald’s values.
Voices from the Fight for $15, which vouches for higher wages and unions for fast food workers, said on Monday that McDonald’s should use the money it gets from Easterbrook in worker-led programs that deal with sexual harassment. Easterbrook was fired after he acknowledged having exchanged videos and text messages in a non-physical consensual relationship with a worker. He told the company that there were no similar instances. An initial search of his mobile also confirmed the same. Based on its knowledge at the time, McDonald’s board approved an agreement “without cause” that allowed Easterbrook to keep nearly $42 million in stock-based benefits, according to Equilar, which tracks executive compensation, AP added. He also collected 26 weeks of pay, taking the compensation of about $670,000.
McDonald's got anonymous tip about Easterbrook's cases
As per the lawsuit filed against Easterbrook, McDonald’s received an anonymous tip last month that the former CEO had got involved in a sexual relationship with another employee. Following a probe, McDonald’s said that the relationship along with two other physical and sexual relationships were confirmed in the year before he was sacked. The lawsuit has also said Easterbrook had approved a special grant of restricted stock worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to one of those employees, the AP report added.
According to the report, the court complaint, which was attached to the company’s SEC filing, said that it found proof that “consisted of dozens of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photographs and videos of various women, including photographs of these Company employees, that Easterbrook had sent as attachments to messages from his Company e-mail account to his personal e-mail account.”
McDonald’s said the time stamps mentioned on the photos showed they were all clicked in late 2018 or early 2019, when Easterbrook was the CEO. “The photographs are undisputable evidence that Easterbrook repeatedly violated the company’s prohibition of any kind of intimate relationship between employees in a direct or indirect reporting relationship. They are undisputable evidence that Easterbrook lied during the investigation into his behavior in October 2019,” McDonald’s said in the filing.