McDonald’s settles discrimination claim with DOJMcDonald’s settles discrimination claim with DOJ

McDonald’s Corp. has settled claims that it discriminated against immigrant employees of company-owned restaurants, the U.S. Justice Department said this week.

McDonald’s will pay $355,000 in civil penalties, undergo monitoring for 20 months, and train workers on anti-discrimination regulations.

The settlement only covers McDonald’s company-owned locations, not its franchisee-owned units. McDonald’s operates about 1,500 of its 14,000 domestic locations.

The Justice Department said that McDonald’s had a longstanding practice in which it required permanent, legal residents to show a new “Green Card,” or permanent resident card, when their initial card expired. Federal law prohibits the practice, and the Justice Department said that McDonald’s would not make the same demands on U.S. citizens whose own identifications had expired.

Some of the legal permanent residents were not allowed to work, and some lost their jobs as a result of the practice, the Justice Department said.

“Employers cannot hold lawful permanent residents to a higher standard by placing additional documentary burdens upon them during the employment verification process,” Vanita Gupta, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, head of the civil rights division, said in a statement. “Requiring unnecessary documentation of individuals based on their citizenship or immigration status is discriminatory.”

In addition to the civil penalties and monitoring, McDonald’s will compensate permanent residents who lost work or their jobs due to these practices. Permanent residents who worked for a company-owned McDonald’s location between Sept. 23, 2012 and March 1, 2015 might be eligible if they were fired or forced to miss work because they couldn’t show a new card when their Green Card was set to expire.

Contact Jonathan Maze at [email protected]
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