The human right for McDonald's employees not to wash their hands
 

The human right for McDonald's employees not to wash their hands
By Ezra Levant on April 15, 2008 4:09 PM

Listen. I love McDonald's, both for their food and for what they stand for philosophically. I thought that Super Size Me was a piece of anti-capitalist, anti-beef propaganda.

But when you're in Vancouver, skip the McDonald's on Marine Drive.

That's because the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that one of the employees there has a human right not to wash her hands when working in their kitchen.

Beena Datt claimed that she developed a "skin condition" that meant she couldn't wash her hands in compliance with McDonald's hygiene policy. That's the same hygiene policy that makes McDonald's like an embassy to Canadians travelling overseas -- when you're in a Third World country, and tired of eating in hygiene-challenged local restaurants, you can count on a western standard of cleanliness and quality at McDonald's.

In B.C., McDonald's hygiene policy isn't just a matter of corporate pride. It's a matter of the law -- both the Health Act and the Food Premises Regulations. And then there's B.C.'s Food Protection Guidelines issued by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. McDonald's subscribes to all of them. Hell, they probably helped write them.

McDonald's is fanatical about hand-washing, to their credit. They have hand-washing rules. Not just the obvious "wash your hands after the bathroom" rules. But other rules, like wash your hands after shaking someone's hand. Wash your hands after retrieving food from the freezer. Wash your hands after touching a door handle. They even have a chime that goes off every hour. It's a "we're all going to wash our hands now" chime. Seriously -- see paragraph 23 of the ruling.

Datt wouldn't wash her hands. She just wouldn't -- she said she couldn't. So her employment was terminated. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ordered that McDonald's pay her not only $23,000 for "lost income", but an additional $25,000 for her "dignity and self-respect". You see, in B.C. a food preparation worker's self-respect trumps a company's commitment to cleanliness. They violated her "human rights".

The $50,000+ penalty -- plus several years of legal fees and medical and rehab experts -- isn't the worst of it. Inventing a "human right" for a worker to go to the bathroom and then to handle meat without washing her hands in between, as an excuse for that $50,000 shakedown isn't the worst of it either.

The worst of it is that the BCHRT has ordered that McDonald's, in paragraph 298 of the decision, to "cease the discriminatory conduct or any similar conduct and refrain from committing the same or similar contravention."

Beena Datt and her filthy hands are gone. But the restaurant has been ordered not to enforce its hand washing policy in any future cases like Datt's.

I wonder what will happen if, God forbid, someone were to contract a disease from that McDonald's because of this insane order. Could such a victim sue McDonald's for failing to live up to its legal public health requirements, even though McDonald's wanted to do so? Or could the BCHRT itself be sued? Would your answer be different if it was just one customer who got an upset stomach -- or a dozen people dying from e. coli, Walkerton style?


http://ezralevant.com/2008/04/the-hu...mcdonalds.html

Now that's just gross!

that sums it up right there....

McDonald's should just shut that store down instead of buckle. That policy should be a point of pride as a business practice, they'd benefit at their other locations where people know their food is handled in the proper manner and cleanliness is important. That store will eventually die from lack of business or discredit anyway.

I thought this was a joke until I did a search under complaints name and found pages of links on matter.
Including this one which gives a bit of a different spin to matters:
http://www.lmls.com/uploads/content/...r2007-2008.pdf

First they do not have a right to work there. They were hired to do a job and follow company policy.

Not going by proper food codes can cause desease and get the shop closed down.

Liberalism at it's best. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

It's ok, McDonald's is an evil capitalistic monster anyway.

Those Canadians take PC stuff pretty seriously, eh?

Anyone remember the frivolous lawsuits that trickled in against McDee's? Doing something like this is like opening the floodgates.

This happened in Canada though.

They have a different set of floodgates.

God damned liberals, I'm glad that I don't have to worry about this kind of crap. Watch out California, you're next.

This is about extremists and "literalists." Those exist on both sides of the coin.

Gross. Gross. Gross. Another reason why I don't eat fast food that often and don't eat at restaurants as often as I used to.

Now all I have to worry about is the sanitation in how the foods are produced and packaged on their way to Whole Foods. :(

eww. that is gross.

if she developed a skin condition that prevented her from washing her hands on a regular basis, maybe she should have found a job that wouldn't require her to BE HANDLING OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD with her dirty hands!!!!

What about the right of the people who are eating the food to not have food handled by a person who didn't wash their hands after going to the bathroom!

Human Resources/Labour Relations-How NOT to accommodate a disabled employee:
 

This is a rather interesting HR (as in Human Resources/Labour Relations) story which involves public heath issues and matters.
The OP posted a blog story.
This is from the News: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...1-bff4906c3a59
For the full back story, you may wish to read some of the following
HOW NOT TO ACCOMMODATE A DISABLED EMPLOYEE

Published on Monday, November 19, 2007

Every employer is (or, at least, should be) aware of its statutory duty to accommodate disabled employees. It seems, however, that some are more effective at meeting this duty than others. Or, perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that some are worse at it than others.

The statutory duty, arising out of provincial and federal human rights legislation, obligates the employer to take certain steps in enabling the disabled employee to become, or return as, a functioning member of the workforce. The employer must treat this obligation in a serious manner, patiently and carefully assessing the disabled individual’s condition.
http://www.pushormitchell.com/public...icle&PubID=259

http://www.filion.on.ca/pdf/caselaws/McDonalds.pdf
http://www.langmichener.ca/index.cfm...D=9812&tID=244
And yes, under their system of laws, matters of human rights can work into HR matters:
http://www.langmichener.ca/index.cfm...Detail&ID=3800
"Unbeknownst to employers, human rights tribunals have broader powers than the courts to address perceived wrongs in the workplace. For example, a terminated employee alleging discrimination of the grounds of sex, can seek an order of reinstatement, back pay and an assortment of damages through a human rights complaint."
It seems to be rather close to our civil right issues.

We dont eat at Little Casear's here. One of our patients works there and has some kind of hand condition where the skin on them is cracked to the point blood and serous fluid can leak out. He admitted to our practitioner that he doenst wear gloves or anything to cover/protect his hands while preparing the dough for pizzas. Totally disgusting.

I wonder what this human rights group would think if they got Hepatitis A from a restaurant that couldve been prevented had employees simply washed their hands (it is a fecal/oral route transmission).

OK, note to self, never read Greek Chat before you are going to order pizza on a Friday night. Gag!!!

^^^You should report that to your local Health Bureau (after visiting the location b/c patient privilege and all), he has a right to work-just not there. (I don't eat little caesar's cos it's nasty! but this makes it worse).

Wondering-couldn't a customer countersue and claim that her not washing her hands is in violation of their human rights or something? i know it'd most certainly be in mine.

I agree with whoever said shut down the McDonald's to prove a point. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. If she wants to work at a CVS counter (which probably pays more) I'd be down-she's not handling food. Even as a cashier in a local grocery, as long as she's not handling food! She could work in an office, from her home (where she can be as nasty as she wants), in a clock factory, I could keep going...just as long as it's not with food.

I'm as pro-hand washing as the next person, but when you read the first article that Jon posted, you'll see that the case ended up being more about McDonald's not taking the actions that it should have to see if she could have been employed by them in a way that didn't require as frequent hand washing, basically in a non-food handling job.

She had worked there for more than 20 years when she developed some kind of health problem related to frequent hand washing. McDonalds basically just fired her and never even dealt with her directly to see what exactly the problem was and if she could be accommodated.

So while making the case about allowing food service employees to refuse to handle food makes us all interested and outraged, it's really a failure to accommodate a disability lawsuit.

There's no indication that anyone felt that food service employees could refuse to wash their hands.

Question, could one not just wear latex gloves and wash them throughout the day if the handwashing is too much? I don't work in food service myself but I must say if I had to wash my hands that much, they'd be bleeding. My skin is far too dry for that level of "hygiene."

ETA: I see in this case, she was told not to wear gloves because they aggravated her condition.

I don't know what the restaurant policies are in the US, but I know here (well, at least in Ontario), it's actaully against regulations to wear gloves. The reason being is that you're actually spreading more bacteria that way, because it stays on the gloves, and the wearer is handling different foods, touching counters, picking up rags, etc., etc. Now, if you request that the food prepares wear gloves while making your burger, they will put them on.

Mr. Pi Phi used to manage a pizza place, and it was part of the health code and company policy not to wear gloves.

Bottom line, this woman should not have been handling the food. I'm sure there was another job at the restaurant that she could have done.

What I'm saying is wear gloves and then wash the gloves, instead of using your bare hands and washing your bare hands.

I read the article, but I also worked for McDonald's for 5 years in high school and college. Many of these restaurants are franchises. The administrative work is done by the managers in between working at the grill and food service up front. I never worked in the grill, but would have to wash my hands a lot as a cashier. Fries, ketchup, mustard...food gets on you even using the best of care. The other option would be to clean up the dining room, but you need to use cleaning fluids out there as well. And you can't tell me she wouldn't want to wash her hands after picking up other people's garbage? The fact of the matter is that everyone has to wash their hands in a restaurant and everyone wears different hats when working there. I can't think of a reasonable accomadation.

I guess she could have gone to work for corporate McDonald's, but are they local to her?

What?

Liberals?

Most of the liberals I know wash their hands.

I go even farther and bet that they would agree that this is "gross."

I'll bet that the real problem is that this McDonalds uses harsh old conservative hand soap.

Exactly. I worked in a restuarant too, if you don't want to wash your hands every so often then something is wrong with you because any time there is food it will get on you if you are around it/handling it.

After reading this article I became so sensitive to handwashing! Yesterday I was in Cheesecake Factory and two customers came in (neither used the handicap bathroom with comes with the sink inside just for reference). I went to wash my hands as usual and noticed two women walk out without even so much as glancing at the sink. People just don't want to wash. I think this also ties in to the post in I think Chit Chat about B.O. Anyways, I couldn't believe it because A) you're eating! and B) The bathroom isn't nasty so they had no reason to not want to touch the sink. Plus they provide paper towels so you can use them to shut off the sink after. I was severely grossed out.

This is wrong on so many levels! Just straight trifling!

I manage a restaurant. I don't touch the food except to get soups, salads or bread which is rarely and I am CONSTANTLY washing my hands. I can't imagine not and I think that's nasty that someone would wana go around with crap on their hands.

Then you know how the food police can come in and get their boots on your neck!

Oh Oh, you messed up and you are closed?

Wait until you see some dick wad spit in peoples food!:mad:

Never went back to that Arby's again nor any other one!:rolleyes:

As someone who worked at McDonald's for several years, there really is NO position in which an employee does not handle food. At all. Cashiers are responsible for fries and condiments, as well as shakes and ice cream and coffee drinks. Cleaning requires handling several liquids. There really is no reasonable position.

I'm not saying it's right. Just how it is. What she should be doing is either not handling food at all, or changing her gloves everytime she handles different food.

Soap + latex, on ANYONE'S hands, would probably chew them up in record time. Not to mention the water getting stuck under the gloves and drying out your hands. You should put on a new pair every time you wash your hands.

If you work in ANY restaurant you have to wash your hands a lot. If she developed a skin condition from all the handwashing, she has to find another line of business. Period.

Interesting.

At the cafeteria in the building where I work, some of the food is made to order (hamburgers, etc.) and some pre-cooked.

It seemed to me that the man who runs the grill portion changed gloves a lot. It seemed to me to be excessive.

However, on closer observation, he changes them (throwing the old pair away) each time he touches any kind of raw meat for the made to order things. (ie: steak slices for a Cheese Steak -- not something that is pre-cooked in this situation)

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Also, my for what it's worth opinion is that if washing hands or wearing gloves is hard on a person's hands, they probably shouldn't be in the food service industry. While they may have rights, so does the eating public.

I won't be visiting there anytime soon. This is disgusting. Someone will definitely get sick. After someone washes their hand there's still endospores from the bacteria on the hands which are able to survive adverse conditions, such as extremely dry, hot, or cold environments. I can't even imagine how much bacteria were on her hands from not washing them. Yuck!

Eewl!!! Yuk!!! Gross!!! Now that's why I have limited my eating out experiences, cuz some folks--nasty... These public health rules are put in place for a REASON--shit travels fast!!! I am NOT interested in boosting my immune system today! I do not need to be laid out down for the count for 2 weeks with 0.9% Sodium Chloride solution IV drip. HAYLE NO!! Just wash your hands preferably with the foaming soap 15 seconds under 42 degree C water--preferably 121 C at autoclave :rolleyes: And dry with an auto dispensing papertowel duly thrown away.

MRSA and strept are NOT a joke to have, these days... Talk about foot and mouth disease...

I was at a Logans (Hoover, AL, HWY 150) where there was a garbage can overflowing and one of the managers pushed the trash down in the can with his bare hands and did not wash them! He proceded to had plates to the waters.

When I told on his nasty behind he called me a liar....but other people saw it.

so no one is concerned that the woman's compensation of $50K+ for "lost wages?" what was SHE making at McD and where do i sign up?

not as concerned as I am that it's okay to not wash your hands in canadian resturants now (or was the order just for that one mcDonald's).

the dollar amount seems rather like a footnote to me. And besides, cost of living might be really high up there, so who knows if it was good money for the mcd's job or just standard

If the case dragged on for over a year it makes even more sense.

This reminds me of the woman that sued McDonalds when she spilled hot coffee all over herself. Wasn't her compensation outrageous?

No Brother, it ended up being less than what everyone remembers.
Also that case was a great deal like this in the way McDonalds handled it.
This is just one of many links about that case:
http://www.caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?eve...wPage&pg=facts