McDonald’s will pay the U.S. government a $355,000 penalty to settle a Justice Department lawsuit that its corporately owned restaurants discriminated against legal immigrant employees.
The company has also agreed to 20 months of monitoring to make sure the illegal practice ceases, and will train its employees on immigration-related anti-discrimination laws.
The Justice Department found that McDonald’s was asking employees who hold green cards for additional worker-eligibility and immigration-status proof after their documents expired. It said McDonald’s didn’t make similar requests to U.S. citizens when their worker eligibility documents expired.
“The investigation found that McDonald’s had a longstanding practice of requiring lawful permanent residents to show a new permanent resident card when their original document expired, even though the law prohibits this practice,” Justice explained.
Workers who failed to comply lost pay and sometimes their jobs as a result, the department stated in a release issued Thursday.
“Employers cannot hold lawful permanent residents to a higher standard by placing additional documentary burdens upon them during the employment eligibility verification process,” said Vanita Gupta, who heads the Civil Rights Division. “Requiring unnecessary documentation of individuals based on their citizenship or immigration status is discriminatory, and the Department of Justice will not hesitate to enforce the law and protect the rights of work-authorized immigrants.”
“We commend McDonald’s for its cooperation throughout this investigation and for committing to compensate its current and former employees who lost wages due to these practices,” Gupta added.
Independently owned McDonald’s franchises were not part of the case.
Affected immigrants are those who worked for a corporately owned McDonald’s restaurant between Sept. 23, 2012, and March 1, 2015.
McDonald’s says it didn’t break the law but settled anyway.
“We deny any wrongdoing in this matter,” a McDonald’s spokesman said about the case in a statement. “But in order to avoid further expense, and in effort to cooperate with the [Justice Department’s] Office of Special Counsel, we reached a settlement.”
“McDonald’s is a people-first organization committed to providing employees with competitive wages, benefits and flexible schedules,” the statement continued. “We also value diversity of thought, background and culture and view it as a competitive advantage.”
