KFC sign
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Global fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has agreed to pay two Orlando employees $100,000 each in compensatory and punitive damages to address sexual harassment and retaliation charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal investigative agency.

“Every employee deserves a workplace free from harassment, discrimination and retaliation,” Kristen Foslid, a regional attorney for the EEOC’s Miami District, said in a statement. “By resolving this matter, the EEOC is ensuring that these workers receive justice, and that KFC implements measures to prevent future misconduct.” 

The location of the Orlando-based KFC involved in this case is not specified, and the EEOC declined to offer specifics or additional information about the case when reached by Orlando Weekly for comment.

According to the federal agency, KFC Corp. subjected the two KFC employees in Orlando to a sexually hostile work environment and retaliated against at least one of the workers by firing her in 2022 over speaking up about sexual harassment on the job. No additional details on the harassment that took place were immediately made available by the EEOC.

The KFC worker who was fired, however, filed charges with the EEOC, which subsequently investigated the matter and found “reasonable cause” that KFC had violated federal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, including sexual harassment and retaliation in the workplace. The agency’s investigation also identified another employee affected by the same misconduct.

According to the EEOC, KFC’s agreement to pay the workers $200,000 comes as the result of a conciliation process, meaning the agency did not take KFC to court but rather resolved the complaint through a pre-litigation conciliation process. Still, like its major fast food competitors Chick-Fil-A and McDonald’s franchises, allegations of sexual harassment aren’t a first for KFC, a Kentucky-headquartered chain with over 30,000 locations in 150 countries and territories worldwide.

The global fast food chain, known for its “finger lickin’ good” fried chicken, has faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment at various locations in the U.S. over the years, as well as separate charges of workplace health and safety violations, child labor violations, and wage theft, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.

Sexual harassment is a pervasive issue in the food and hospitality industries especially, with young women particularly vulnerable to harassment on the job. As of 2017, more sexual harassment claims were made in the restaurant industry than any other, affecting both men and women.

Contributing factors that can make restaurant workers more susceptible to harassment on the job include power dynamics at play in low-wage work environments and a mentality of “the customer is always right” that can downplay or otherwise undermine experiences of customer abuse and harassment targeting workers.

Florida saw one of the highest numbers of sex-based discrimination claims in the U.S. in 2024, according to EEOC data, lagging only behind Texas (another Southern state with weak state-level labor protections). Nearly 2,000 sex discrimination complaints filed with the federal agency in 2024 came from Florida (compared to roughly 2,800 from Texas), on top of 2,411 charges of illegal retaliation in violation of Title VII.

In this latest case in Orlando, KFC reportedly agreed to implement annual training on sex discrimination for staff and human resources, according to the EEOC’s news release. KFC will also change its workplace policies to explicitly prohibit sex-based discrimination (something we’re kind of stunned wasn’t already in place) and agreed to report on any future sexual discrimination complaints over the next three years.

KFC did not return a request for comment from Orlando Weekly on this sexual harassment case, or their existing anti-discrimination policies, ahead of publication. We will add any comment from them that comes in as an update to this post.

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Clarification, January 6, 2026 5:09 pm: This post has been updated to clarify that, post-publication, the EEOC declined to comment on this case when reached by email.

General news reporter for Orlando Weekly, with a focus on state and local government and workers' rights. You can find her bylines in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, In These Times, and Facing South.