Safety fears as McDonald’s places young staff alone on overnight shifts

Michelle Ainsworth
Herald Sun
November 13, 2012

FAST food giant McDonald’s has been accused of placing young staff in danger when making them work overnight shifts.

Staff aged under 18 are regularly working between 10pm and 5am in stores without security guards or a male manager, current and former employees say.

Mum Maree Smith said her two daughters, Madeleine, 17, and Bethany, 16, often worked overnight shifts at the Lilydale McDonald’s store.

“They were told that it was compulsory, they had to do one (overnight shift) at least once a month,” Ms Smith said.

“They often come home with some awful stories about having to call the police in because they’ve got a lot of drunks that come through the store.

“The last shift that both my girls did they were on together and a man came behind the counter, he was drunk.

“They had a security guard there who was a female who did nothing for them, didn’t stop him from coming behind the counter. He didn’t do anything but he was quite vocal and they were quite scared from it.”

Ms Smith called for the takeaway giant to be investigated by WorkSafe.

Former McDonald’s worker Kate Frauenfelder, 24, worked at the Mulgrave store for seven years from the age of 15.

She had refused to work overnight shifts when young but said others often did.

“When I first started we were the only 24-hour store in the area so we got all the drunk people on Friday, Saturday nights and they were often pretty violent, especially through the drive through,” she said.

Both women came forward after staff and customers at the Mulgrave restaurant alleged they had to wrestle an armed bandit attempting to rob the store just before 1am yesterday.

The man allegedly threatened three staff members before he placed a sawn-off rifle on the counter and demanded cash from the tills and two customers.

A staff member and customers tackled the man as he allegedly went to stuff about $700 into a bag.

A 20-year-old Heatherton man was charged with three counts each of armed robbery, theft and assault and possession of an unregistered firearm.

He was remanded in custody to appear in court on February 4.

McDonald’s spokeswoman Skye Oxenham said all staff at the Mulgrave store during the alleged attempted armed robbery were over 18.

– with Emily Portelli