Alleged rape not investigated
Restaurant Brands told worker who claimed she was raped by a manager that it hadn’t investigated because it happened at a social occasion. Alison Mau investigates.
The owner of fast-food outlet Pizza Hut stalled for four months before agreeing to investigate a claim that one of its managers raped a worker. Restaurant Brands is now refusing calls to appoint an independent investigator to the case.
The woman reported the rape, which she alleges happened after a dinner organised by the manager who had travelled from Auckland to her city to help open a new store, to her Pizza Hut area manager two weeks later.
Emails seen by the Sunday Star-Times show the area manager reported the claim internally a day later.
The worker says she heard nothing from the company for almost three months, before filing a personal grievance claim in December asking for an apology, compensation, and for independent training of all management in issues of sexual harassment and assault.
Ten days later, the company replied and said it had not investigated because its HR managers thought the dinner meeting was a ‘‘personal/social event’’, and that the manager’s ‘‘out of work activities’’ were not relevant. It said that because the manager had left the company before the incident was reported, it ‘‘did not feel (it) could take the matter any further’’.
It then accepted an investigation was warranted, but will not appoint an outside investigator, insisting the HR managers who initially refused to investigate had ‘‘no conflict of interest’’.
The woman says she was befriended by the manager during weekly work-related phone calls she described as becoming ‘‘increasingly personal’’. In one of those calls, he told her he was promoting her.
‘‘At first I just thought he was being nice and I was happy to have a manager who was so friendly,’’ she says.
The manager visited her city for work several times in the months between June and September 2019 to discuss the progress of a new store.
In August, he called to say he had recently resigned from the company but would come to her city a final time to celebrate the store opening. The night he arrived, the woman and a manager from another store were invited to dinner by the manager.
The woman says he bought her multiple drinks as the three chatted about work, before the other manager left around 8pm. Just before 10pm, the manager bought her a fifth drink, which she says ‘‘tasted bitter’’.
She says that’s where things got ‘‘hazy’’. At another bar, the man told her he ‘‘had mistresses’’ and that what his wife ‘‘didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her’’. The woman describes feeling heavily intoxicated by this stage, and remembers being in a taxi, and then vomiting several times in the bathroom of a motel unit.
She does not remember her clothes being removed, but does recall ‘‘painful’’ sexual intercourse, and that the manager had pinned her hands behind her head on the bed.
She says she was too drunk to consent to having sex with the man, and would not have done so willingly.
Early the next morning, she heard the man talking on the phone to his family.
‘‘I remember pulling the blanket over my head because I felt disgusting,’’ she says. After locating her phone on the other side of the bed, she dressed and left for her shift at Pizza Hut.
She told a co-worker what had happened, and two weeks later, told her area manager.
She says she was devastated when the complaint was ignored by Restaurant Brands.
The woman says the area manager had been supportive when she first reported what had happened, and had offered to help her make a report to police, which she did not wish to do.
‘‘I feel like because of my mental health, at this stage is probably not the best idea for me to do so. One small step at a time.’’
Employment law specialist Steph Dyhrberg says it should have been evident to Restaurant Brands the dinner was work-related.
‘‘There’s plenty of case law to show that workrelated social occasions fall under our employment law. But for their working relationship, they would arguably not have been at that event.’’
These situations often arise at after-work functions, or when employees are required to go away for the weekend, Dyhrberg says.
‘‘Misconduct outside the workplace has been part of the law for decades. If a complaint is made in those circumstances and you fail to investigate, it’s a breach of the Human Rights Act.’’
When union delegates asked the company to appoint an independent, external investigator with expertise in sexual assault claims, Restaurant Brands refused but said it would reconsider once it had more information.
On January 30, the company again refused to launch an external investigation, saying it did not think its HR staff had any conflict of interest.
The complainant says although she remains employed by Restaurant Brands and had recently accessed help through their Employee Assistance Programme, she has not heard from the company about the investigation in the six weeks since then.
‘‘I’ve been waiting for mediation or at least something for months now and have had absolutely nothing.
‘‘It’s a struggle to perform at 100 per cent, and do my job to the best of my ability when the company doesn’t care and isn’t doing anything to resolve the matter.’’
Restaurant Brands acknowledged a worker had made a complaint of sexual assault ‘‘against a manager outside of the workplace’’.
‘‘The manager concerned had already resigned when the alleged assault occurred, and he left shortly afterwards,’’ a spokesperson said.
‘‘Her complaint was taken very seriously. We immediately provided our employee with assistance and offered to support her in filing a complaint with police. We are yet to be contacted by police, but would fully co-operate with any investigation.
‘‘The employee then lodged a formal personal grievance claim with us, which we are working through with her.’’
It said claims that it had pulled out of mediation were false, and would say nothing further ‘‘as this is a private matter’’.
Restaurant Brands’ big profits
The parent company of the KFC, Pizza Hut, Carls Jnr., and Taco Bell fast-food brands, Restaurant Brands employs almost 4000 New Zealanders.
The public company trades on both the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges, and reported total group sales of $442.6 million in the second half of 2019, up $11.6m on the previous halfyear. On the company’s website, the jump in sales is partially attributed to the performance of KFC New Zealand stores.
Four-month Stuff investigation
In a four month-long investigation, Stuff’s #MeTooNZ project has looked into the claims of 16 employees, ranging from inappropriate sexual and homophobic comments, through unwanted touching, to two cases of rape.
In one of the most serious cases, a teenage Pizza Hut worker was raped three times by her manager while they were setting up the store for the day’s trading. The rapist, Dilbagh ‘‘Sonny’’ Singh, was convicted of three counts of rape in October 2019 and jailed for nine years and six months.
The worker has filed a formal complaint with the Human Rights Commission, after an investigation she claims was ‘‘botched’’ by Restaurant Brands’ HR department. She says the company failed to keep her safe after she reported the rapes, by refusing to move her to another store, and initially denying her access to leave, while Singh was stood down on full pay.
She is one of four Restaurant Brands workers to file formal complaints to the commission this year.
After the Star-Times put questions to Restaurant Brands on December 3, the company issued a public apology to the rape victim and promised an independent review of its investigation process.
‘‘Misconduct outside the workplace has been part of the law for decades.’’ Employment law specialist Steph Dyhrberg
11 stores investigated
The complaints have come from KFC and Pizza Hut stores in Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North, Whanganui and New Plymouth. One complainant worked at Lambton Quay in Wellington at a Starbucks coffee store, a brand that has since been sold by Restaurant Brands.
Some of the stores are franchised, which means
they are overseen by Restaurant Brands but owned and run under agreement by individuals or private companies; but the Star-Times understands that in all cases, complaints are overseen by Restaurant Brands Head Office.
In Christchurch, the Shirley KFC store has complaints from four workers, as has the store in Princess St, Palmerston North.
Altogether, 11 stores have been investigated, or had complaints lodged about behaviour of managers or staff.
In two cases, the managers accused of harassment were subsequently promoted.
66 questions – no specific answers
The Star-Times has asked for answers to 66 questions about sexual harassment cases, and company policies and procedures, since December. Restaurant Brands has not provided answers to any specific questions.
It has provided three statements claiming it was committed to resolving each complaint, would ‘‘cooperate fully’’ with each complainant, and had investigation and training processes in place.
In December it said it was conducting an external review of the way it approached bullying, harassment and assault claims. It has not answered any questions about who conducted the review or what its results were.
The company said it was also planning a review of its ‘‘existing training programme and toolkit for managers’’ in early 2020, ‘‘to ensure that managers are equipped to handle complaints in a thoughtful and appropriate way.’’
What workers’ advocates say
In some of the cases the Star-Times has investigated, workers have been supported by union delegates.
Approached for comment this week, Unite Union industrial officer Duncan Allan said he believed Restaurant Brands had a systemic issue that was not going away ‘‘anytime soon’’.
‘‘Managers are primarily the offenders, and there is a lack of training in preventing, identifying and dealing with sexual harassment,’’ Allan said.
‘‘When complaints are made to HR they are not investigated adequately, little or no steps are taken and the company is more concerned with covering up any issues rather than putting in steps to prevent further issues.’’
He described ‘‘wilful obstruction from HR’’ in some cases and lack of action that had caused more damage to the victims than the original harassment.
‘‘If they took sexual harassment as seriously as they take petty theft, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’’
Equal Employment Opportunities commissioner, Saunoamaali’i Dr Karanina Sumeo said sexual harassment and exploitation in the workplace was ‘‘not acceptable in any way shape or form’’.
‘‘It’s obvious that some workplaces are simply unsafe . . . Leaders must hold each other accountable for silence, exploitation, and complacency when sexual harassment occurs – the buck stops there,’’ she said.