Oak Brook, Ill. – Marching behind a giant banner that read, \u201cMcDonald\u2019s: $15 and Union Rights, Not Food Stamps,\u201d 5,000 cooks and cashiers massed at the company\u2019s corporate headquarters\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0to kick off the largest-ever protest to hit the burger giant\u2019s annual shareholder meeting.<\/p>\n
Fed up with pay that drives them to\u00a0rely on public assistance<\/a>, angry over the company\u2019s springtime\u00a0publicity stunt disguised as a wage increase<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0and emboldened by recent moves by elected leaders in\u00a0New York<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0to raise pay to as high as $15,\u00a0workers surged into the streets outside McDonald\u2019s corporate headquarters, doubling the size of the previous year\u2019s historic protest.<\/p>\n On the eve of the annual meeting, they marched to the headquarters chanting, \u201cWe Work, We Sweat, Put $15 in Our Check,\u201d and were joined by ministers and faith leaders from across the country, who led a service calling on McDonald\u2019s to do the right thing by paying workers $15 and respecting their right to join together in a union. McDonald\u2019s, which has\u00a0barred reporters<\/a>\u00a0from the annual meeting for the second consecutive year, shut the building in anticipation of the protest and removed Golden Arches flags from the property. It also closed a restaurant adjacent to the headquarters.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here to tell McDonald\u2019s and its shareholders to invest in the company and its workers instead of wealthy hedge fund managers and executives,\u201d said Kwanza Brooks, a Fight for 15 National Organizing Committee member and mother of three from Charlotte, NC, who is paid $7.25. \u201cWe\u2019re tired of relying on food stamps to feed our own families. We need $15 and the right to form a union and we need it now.\u201d<\/p>\n Workers from across the country spoke from a stage outside McDonald\u2019s corporate headquarters Wednesday afternoon, describing what it\u2019s like to work for low pay at McDonald\u2019s: \u201cWe\u2019re here to make it clear to McDonald\u2019s that we want $15 and union rights. We don\u2019t need food stamps, and we definitely don\u2019t want buybacks,\u201d said Adriana Alvarez of Chicago, Ill., who has worked at McDonald\u2019s for five years, but is paid so little that she needs food stamps, child care subsidies and Medicaid to support her three-year-old son, Manny.<\/p>\n The march and protest\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0kicked off two days of worker actions around McDonald\u2019s annual shareholder meeting. Cooks and cashiers will return to the Oak Brook streets at\u00a07 am\u00a0Thursday. They\u2019ll march and rally and, when the meeting begins at\u00a09 am, deliver more than 1 million petition signatures from everyday Americans calling on McDonald\u2019s to raise pay and respect union rights. It comes a year after\u00a0101 McDonald\u2019s workers were arrested<\/a>\u00a0during a peaceful sit-in at the company\u2019s 2014 shareholder meeting.<\/p>\n The workers\u2019 protest follows the publication earlier this month of\u00a0a paper in the Harvard Business Review<\/a>\u00a0by William Lazonick, a University of Massachusetts Lowell economist, who details nearly $30 billion McDonald\u2019s has spent on share buybacks in the last decade. Lazonick and two co-authors argue that McDonald\u2019s should have spent that money raising worker pay, or invested it in the company, instead of using it to \u201cmanipulate\u201d its stock price and enrich executives and short-term investors.<\/p>\n And it came as several institutional investors with major holdings in McDonald\u2019s spoke out about the company\u2019s penchant for buying back its own stock.\u00a0On Wednesday, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, Chicago Treasurer Kurt A. Summers, and California Controller Betty T. Yee released a joint letter<\/a> highlighting their concerns about the overuse of buybacks at portfolio companies, including McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMcDonalds is facing serious performance challenges,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cBut despite a recently announced and much needed turnaround plan, the company continues to direct capital towards an aggressive share buyback program.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking at the protest, Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry told the workers that their movement was changing the country and urged McDonald\u2019s to listen to workers\u2019 demand for $15 and union rights. \u201cIt\u2019s time for McDonald\u2019s to respect the workers on the front lines as much as they have respected shareholders by putting $30 billion in their pockets over the last 10 years,\u201d Henry said.<\/p>\n Clergy from across the country led a church service in the shadows of McDonald\u2019s headquarters, describing share buybacks as immoral and calling on the company to do the right thing by paying workers fairly and respecting their right to join together in a union.<\/p>\n Finally, the Rev. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Mondays Movement and pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Greensboro, NC, gave a rousing sermon, telling workers that they were \u201cmaking America better.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just came by to tell you when you raise up, it helps all of us recover our humanity,\u201d Barber said. \u201cWhen you raise up, it changes the political conversation. When you raise up, it makes it possible for all workers to have dignity. When you raise up, it makes it possible for a mother to feed her children.\u201d<\/p>\n He admonished companies like McDonald\u2019s for paying wages so low that workers are forced to rely on public assistance to get by.<\/p>\n \u201cPay us and we\u2019ll get off public assistance,\u201d Rev. Barber said. \u201cLet me be clear, the people out here that you see, they are working people. They don\u2019t want public assistance; they just want to live and feed their children and take care of their own. They don\u2019t mind working, but they want a living wage when they work.\u201d<\/p>\n The protest occurred amidst growing momentum from coast-to-coast for higher pay. It came the\u00a0same day a Wage Board convened by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo held its first meeting to decide on a significant increase in pay for 180,000 fast-food workers across the state. And it came the day after elected officials in Los Angeles voted to raise pay in the nation\u2019s most populous city to $15.<\/p>\n McDonald\u2019s shareholder meeting comes in the aftermath of the\u00a0largest-ever strike to hit the fast-food industry<\/a>\u2013a 236-city\u00a0April 15\u00a0walkout in every corner of the United States that included strikes and protests in 40 countries and 100 cities around the globe, from Amsterdam to Zurich.<\/p>\n In addition to strikes and\u00a0slumping sales<\/a>, McDonald\u2019s approaches its annual meeting facing a host of business challenges at home and abroad.<\/p>\n In the United States, the federal government is\u00a0accusing the fast-food giant of rampant labor-law violations<\/a>, and is arguing that the corporate parent, not just franchisees, are responsible for the illegal actions. McDonald\u2019s workers in three states filed class action lawsuits\u00a0alleging wage theft<\/a>\u00a0and cooks and cashiers filed a federal civil rights suit alleging rampant\u00a0racial discrimination\u00a0<\/a>at stores in Virginia.\u00a0Workers also filed\u00a0more than two-dozen complaints<\/a>\u00a0in 19 cities with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleging McDonald\u2019s workers are being burned on the job, with many told to use condiments like mustard to ease the pain. Meanwhile,\u00a0scrutiny is increasing<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0public cost<\/a>\u00a0of the company\u2019s low wages.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, SEIU\u00a0petitioned the Federal Trade Commission<\/a>\u00a0to launch an investigation into the nation\u2019s $800 billion franchise industry, calling the dramatic imbalance of power between franchisors and franchisees, \u201cabusive and predatory.\u201d<\/p>\n Overseas,\u00a0McDonald’s is being accused by a coalition of trade unions and the UK-based NGO War on Want of\u00a0avoiding more than \u00e2\u201a\u00ac1 billion in taxes\u00a0<\/a>over the last five years. The European Commission\u2019s Directorate of Competition\u00a0launched a preliminary investigation<\/a>\u00a0to find out whether McDonald\u2019s entered into an illegal deal with Luxembourg that allowed it to avoid taxes.\u00a0A new report this week<\/a>\u00a0by PSI and the International Union of Foodworkers detailed\u00a0McDonald’s global tax avoidance strategy and revealed how McDonalds has taken advantage of corporate tax loopholes to avoid paying up to US$1.8 billion in taxes, including AU$497 million in Australia.<\/p>\n In Brazil, a coalition of trade unions has filed two lawsuits accusing the company of\u00a0widespread and systematic labor<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0health and safety violations<\/a>. One of the suits accuses McDonald\u2019s of \u201csocial dumping,\u201d an anti-competitive practice that drives standards down for workers across the country, and seeks to prevent the company from opening new stores unless it complies with Brazilian law. Also, McDonald\u2019s agent in Latin America and the Caribbean, Arcos Dorados,\u00a0has come under scrutiny<\/a>\u00a0in recent weeks, with an investor group asking the New York Stock Exchange to review the company\u2019s corporate governance. And in Japan, an investor group is\u00a0calling on McDonald\u2019s Japan<\/a>\u00a0to dismiss internal directors and replace them with external ones.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n<\/div>\n