Franchise operator sues fast food-chain for ‘racist’ policies

Herb Washington, a former Oakland Athletics player who built the country’s largest black-owned McDonald’s franchise operation, filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the fast-food giant of systemic racial discrimination for its pattern of steering black owners into restaurants in impoverished neighbourhoods that yielded less profit, targeting them with unequal assessments that made it harder to renew their contracts, then pressuring them to sell to white owners.

Washington, 69, owned 27 McDonald’s restaurants in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania during his four decades as a franchisee but alleged that the company began a campaign to drive him out in 2017 in retaliation for speaking about the ‘‘predatory, racially biased steering practices’’ against black franchisees.

Today he owns 14 McDonald’s restaurants, he said, having been forced to sell seven stores in the last three years alone to white owners.

‘‘McDonald’s has targeted me for extinction,’’ Washington said during a Zoom press conference from his home, appearing in a grey suit and black tie before a painting of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston.

‘‘It took every ounce of me to succeed against the incredible and unfair odds that McDonald’s forced on me.’’

Washington said he’s suing to end McDonald’s ‘‘two-tiered system where black owner operators cannot be as successful as whites. There is a system for them and one for people who look like me.’’

He said he represents many black franchisees who left McDonald’s broke because of that system.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Ohio, accused McDonald’s of hypocrisy, joining corporations releasing statements proclaiming Black Lives Matter while ‘‘it has done nothing to change its own internal policies that perpetuate systemic racism by disadvantaging and squeezing out its black franchise owners’’.

McDonald’s responded to the lawsuit by blaming Washington for his business challenges.

‘‘This situation is the result of years of mismanagement by Mr Washington, whose organisation has failed to meet many of our standards on people, operations, guest satisfaction and reinvestment,’’ McDonald’s said in a statement.

‘‘His restaurants have a public record of these issues including past health and sanitation concerns and some of the highest volumes of customer complaints in the country.’’ –