Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 5-28-19

Across The Nation
#MeToo Movement Takes On The Big Mac Of Sexual Harassment Claims
Sybrina Fulton: Mother Of Trayvon Martin Is Running For Office In Florida
“Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin says she is running for Miami- Dade County Commissioner, CBS Miami reports.
Trayvon was gunned down at age 17 by then-neighborhood watch volunteer George Zim- merman, who was subse- quently acquitted. The case sparked nationwide protests and led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Since her son’s murder, Fulton has advocated to make South Florida communities safer. She co-founded the Miami Gardens-based Trayvon Martin Foundation in the dis- trict she’ll represent should she be elected to the Miami-Dade County Commission. Fulton
SYBRINA FULTON
will face off against Miami Gar- dens Mayor Oliver Gilbert in the election, according to the Miami Herald.
In this Sept. 4, 2014, photo, protesters block traffic on Mack Avenue in Detroit as part of a national protest to push fast-food chains to pay their employees at least $15 an hour. The labor group Fight for $15 is now backing sexual harassment claims against fast food behemoth McDonald’s in the latest push to hold big corporations more responsible for the welfare of their workers.Photo: Associated Press
A group of 10 women who worked for McDonald’s restaurants in nine different U.S. cities, including four teenagers, filed federal sex- ual harassment charges against the fast-food behe- moth on Tuesday.
The women charge gen- der discrimination, sexual harassment on the job and being punished with retalia- tion when they complained about it.
One of the women, Brit- tany Hoyos, tells the New York Times that she was a 16-year-old on her first job when she encountered sexual harassment at a McDonald’s in Tucson, Ariz.
In her complaint, she charges that her manager de- liberately brushed up against her in narrow areas, touched her hair and tried to kiss her. Co-workers called her a “whore,” the Times reports.
Hoyos’ mother worked at the McDonald’s as well, and at first, Hoyos said, she hid the unwanted encounters from her mom as well as her dad.
“I was embarrassed,” she says in the complaint. “I felt
like I was at fault or that I had done something wrong.” When she finally did tell her parents and also com- plained to her supervisors, both she and her mother ended up on the unemploy- ment line. She was demoted and eventually fired. Her mother decided to quit out of frustration with how her
daughter had been treated. Legal representation for Hoyos and the other women filing complaints against Mc- Donald’s is being paid for by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which was formed to help women fight sexual ha- rassment in the workplace in the aftermath of the scandal involving disgraced movie
mogul Harvey Weinstein. “The stories we heard today are chilling, and they are exactly why Time’s Up was created in the first place,” Rebecca Goldman, interim CEO of Time’s Up, said in a statement to The Root. “We want more than lip service from McDonald’s. We want an unequivocal commitment to the safety
and dignity of its workers.” A total of 20 complaints were filed with the U. S.
Equal Employment Opportu- nity Commission, while three others were filed as civil rights lawsuits, and another two are earlier complaints that are now additional law- suits against the multibillion- dollar corporation, according to the New York Times.
Attorneys for the women say they want to consolidate their cases with similar com- plaints against McDonald’s filed two years ago by the labor group Fight for $15, the Associated Press reports.
Fight for $15, which was formed to fight for a $15-an- hour living wage for McDon- ald’s and other fast-food workers, is also supporting this latest effort, which is a push to make the #MeToo movement more aligned to the needs of lower-income women and not only seen as a force for higher-profile vic- tims of sex harassment, ac- cording to the AP.
“What we’re seeing over and over again in these claims—for these workers, they’re put in a position where you have to put up with the harassment, or you lose the paycheck that’s keeping you in a house or keeping groceries on your table,” Sharyn Tejani, di- rector of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, told the New York Times.
McDonald’s, in a re- sponse to AP via email, said: There is “no place for harass- ment and discrimination of any kind” in the workplace.
“McDonald’s Corporation takes allegations of sexual harassment very seriously and [is] confident our inde- pendent franchisees who own and operate approxi- mately 90 percent of our 14,000 U. S. restaurants will do the same,” spokeswoman Terri Hickey said.
Homeless Tennessee Teen Named High School Valedictorian, Receives Over $3M In Scholarships
Tupac Mosely turned his story from homelessness to success and will use $3 million in scholarships to forge his future. (WHBQ)
A Memphis teen who just months ago faced homeless- ness now has a bright future ahead of him after being named his school’s valedicto- rian and receiving more than 50 scholarships worth over $3 million in total, according to the Daily Mail.
Tupac Mosely, 17, grad- uated Sunday from Raleigh Egypt High School with a 4.3 GPA. He has been accepted to more than 40 schools and plans to attend Tennessee State University to study electrical engineering.
During his heartfelt grad- uation speech at Sunday’s
commencement, Tupac shared his story that has now gone viral.
“After my father passed, we fell behind on bills and we ended up getting evicted from our home February 21 of this year,” Mosley said. “So, we went to different homes so far and we were blessed to have For the King- dom.”
Tupac was living at For the Kingdom, a camping site and a nonprofit organization that helps Memphis area youth. The director of the or- ganization allowed Tupac and his family to stay there.
PAGE 4 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2019