Black-owned McDonald’s Franchisee Sues McDonald’s for Racial Discrimination

Former Oakland A’s player and successful McDonald’s franchise owner Herbert Washington has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s.

Washington accused the fast-food giant of racially discriminating against him by pushing him to operate his business in the least likely locations and also forcing him to sell his store locations after he complained.

“When I stood up for myself and other Black franchisees, McDonald’s began dismantling my life’s work, forcing me to sell one store after the other to White operators,” Washington said in a statement.

The former Major League Baseball player was once McDonald’s largest franchisee in the U.S. He currently operates 14 McDonald’s restaurants, down from 23 restaurants in 2017. Herbert filed the lawsuit against McDonald’s in Ohio federal court last Tuesday. The lawsuit is similar to two racial discrimination allegations from Black former and current McDonald’s franchisees last year.

In September, a similar complaint was filed by 52 Black operators who alleged that McDonald’s was strategically sending Black operators to low-income locations that generate $700,000 less than the national average of all its franchisees between 2011 and 2016.

Washington, in his complaint, said McDonald’s assured Black operators that it was going to close the wealth gap between Black franchisees and Whit franchisees by sending white operators to low-volume locations that were assigned to Black franchisees. The Black operator added that, when he started his first McDonald’s franchise in 1980, despite spending a good part of his life in Michigan and having no business, whatsoever with Rochester, New York, the company still assigned him to a predominantly Black neighborhood, without other options.

After two decades of running his McDonald’s franchise in Rochester, Washington managed to expand to five other restaurants, still in low-volume neighborhoods. In his complaint, he stated that this was compared to White franchisees in the area which were allowed to expand at a faster rate compared to Washington. He gave an example of the time he wanted to buy restaurants located in the suburbs of Rochester from a White operator but the sale was allegedly blocked by McDonald’s and sold the restaurants to a White owner instead.

According to the complaints, Washington said McDonald’s has prevented him from operating locations on the West Side or in the Cleveland suburbs – areas that have more White residents. He said that he complained to the fast-food chain over the years, but his complaints were never productive.

McDonald’s USA declined to comment on the allegation when asked by news outlets. The fast-food chain said it is still reviewing the complaints, but mentioned that Washington was facing a few female challenges and McDonald’s has offered him several opportunities to escape those challenges.

“This situation is the result of years of mismanagement by Mr. Washington, whose organization 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 including past health and sanitation concerns and some of the highest volumes of customer complaints in the country.”