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).