McDonald’s and Chuck E Cheese tied to alleged foreign worker exploitation
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[McDonald's workers] Lee and Sunar are among nearly 100 migrant laborers from Asia who say they’ve been subjected to repressive labor practices while working at the Persian Gulf locations of four well-known American and British brands: McDonald’s, Amazon, Chuck E Cheese and the InterContinental Hotels Group.
The current and former workers say independent employment agents in their home countries coerced them into paying exorbitant recruiting fees, while labor contractors and workplace supervisors in Saudi Arabia and other destination countries subjected them to abuses that included confiscating their passports and limiting their freedom to leave their jobs...
The workers who provided information for this investigation were employed through various arrangements. Workers for McDonald’s, Chuck E Cheese and the UK-headquartered InterContinental Hotels Group in the region are mostly direct employees of franchise holders or other local partners. Workers who say they came to Saudi Arabia from Nepal to work directly for Amazon instead discovered they were employed by Saudi labor supply firms that placed them in contract positions at the online retail giant...
In a statement, a representative from McDonald’s Corporation headquarters in Chicago called the abuses detailed in the workers’ accounts “extremely troubling”. The statement said the global corporation updated its “ethical recruitment” standards last year to provide “a consistent approach” to protecting workers. These standards require that “no migrant worker pays for recruitment fees and related costs to secure their employment”, the statement said...
RICC, the major McDonald’s franchisee in Saudi Arabia, did not answer questions for this story, but said in a statement that it was in the process of updating its employment standards to align with McDonald’s enhanced recruitment standards. “Nothing is more important than ensuring the safety and respect of the employees who keep our restaurants running every day,” RICC said.
Amazon said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” some of its contract workers were not treated with “the dignity and respect they deserve”. The InterContinental Hotels Group and the Chuck E Cheese brand’s parent, CEC Entertainment, said they took fair treatment of workers very seriously...
Many of the 97 current and former workers interviewed for this story agreed to be identified by name. Others spoke on the condition that their identities not be revealed because of concerns about retaliation. To support their accounts, workers provided photos, videos and copies of hundreds of documents, including paystubs, work certificates, passports, employment contracts and plane tickets...