{"id":3868,"date":"2014-05-22T12:27:34","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T17:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/?p=3868"},"modified":"2014-05-22T12:27:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T17:27:34","slug":"progressive-groups-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-charleston-area-mcdonalds-workers-arrested-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/2014\/05\/22\/progressive-groups-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-charleston-area-mcdonalds-workers-arrested-in-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Groups Stand in Solidarity with the Charleston-Area McDonald\u2019s Workers Arrested in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"960\"<\/a>Protesters demonstrate outside McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook.<\/strong> (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune \/ May 21, 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n

Seven Charleston-area fast food workers, including six McDonald\u2019s employees, were arrested Wednesday during a protest at the company\u2019s annual shareholder meeting in Oak Brook, Illinois. A delegation of ten workers from Charleston joined more than 2,000 fast-food workers, community supporters, clergy and elected officials at the corporate headquarters near Chicago to escalate their call for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Wednesday\u2019s protest took place less than a week after strikes and protests rocked 230 cities around the world in what MSNBC called the \u201cbiggest fast-food strike ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the local McDonald\u2019s workers arrested was Cherri Delisline, a mother of four. “I’ve been working for McDonalds for 10 years and my hourly paycheck is the same now as it was my first day on the job: $7.35,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not okay for McDonald\u2019s to rake in huge profits but pay us so little we can’t support our families. I went on strike and now I got arrested, and I will continue to protest until McDonald\u2019s listens.\u201d Delisline was among more than 100 McDonald\u2019s workers to be arrested Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The SC AFL-CIO, the Charleston Central Labor Council, the SC Progressive Network<\/a> (Charleston chapter), the Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment, the Coalition (People United to Take Back our Community), and the International Longshoremen\u2019s Association (Local 1422) stand in solidarity with the Charleston fast food workers and their efforts to form a union and raise the minimum wage. Last Thursday (May 15), more than three dozen workers went on strike at area fast food restaurants. They were joined on picket lines in front of Burger King (4709 Dorchester Rd., North Charleston) and McDonald\u2019s (2988 W. Montague Ave., North Charleston) by dozens of community supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do the math it doesn\u2019t add up to surviving,\u201d said Erin McKee, president of the SC AFL-CIO. \u201cYou cannot live on $7.25 an hour.\u201d McKee noted that many of the fast food workers are also parents. \u201cI know what it\u2019s like to wonder if you have enough to pay the bills or to worry about losing your job if you miss work because your child gets sick,\u201d said McKee who has been a single parent for all of her adult life.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s annual shareholder meeting, scheduled for Thursday, approaches as investors and company officials are increasingly realizing they need to respond to workers\u2019 call for higher pay. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company admitted that the growing and focus on inequality might force them to raise wages. And in response to class-action lawsuits against McDonald\u2019s that allege widespread and systematic wage theft, the company announced it was launching a comprehensive investigation.<\/p>\n

Scrutiny on the company has intensified since the release of a report earlier this month by Demos showing that the fast-food industry has the largest disparity between worker and CEO pay. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said that excessive pay disparities \u201cpose a risk to share owner value,” and that conversations around inequality should move into the boardrooms of profitable fast-food companies.<\/p>\n

USA Today noted that the growing worker movement would be front-and-center at McDonald\u2019s annual shareholder meeting, naming it \u201cthe issue that just won\u2019t go away.\u201d And Business Insider wrote that the company was barring reporters from the annual meeting because of \u201cthe pressure the company is feeling from shareholders, franchisees, and especially workers \u2014 who are planning to protest at the meeting in Oakbrook, Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problems of pay disparity in fast food extend beyond the industry to affect the rest of our economy,\u201d said Catherine Ruetschlin, Demos Policy Analyst and author of the report\u00a0Fast Food Failure. \u201cEven the industry leader, McDonald\u2019s, has acknowledged that rising inequality is a risk to their bottom line, as companies see the negative consequences of pay disparity appear as operational issues, legal challenges, and diminishing worker and customer satisfaction.\u00a0Those consequences pose a real risk to shareholders, who have a material interest in addressing the practices that drive income inequality, undermine the long-term performance of the firm, and inhibit stability and growth in the economy overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

As McDonald\u2019s U.S. sales are slumping, the company is facing growing criticism from both customers and franchisees. A recent Harris poll found that McDonald\u2019s reputation among customers fell sharply, and surveys show that a majority of franchise owners are upset with the company, describing their relationship as \u201cpoor\u201d and giving McDonald\u2019s the lowest ratings it\u2019s seen in 12 years.<\/p>\n

In the past year, McDonald\u2019s was widely ridiculed for its sample budget for workers, which required them to get a second job to make ends meet; its employee advice site that told workers to sing away stress, take small bites of food to avoid hunger and not eat fast food; an employee hotline that encouraged workers to apply for public assistance; and findings that the company costs U.S. taxpayers $1.2 billion annually in public assistance for its workers.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s workers who will protest at the annual meeting, and who have now struck six times in the past 18 months, are challenging the company\u2019s outdated notion that their workers are teenagers looking for pocket change. Research shows that a majority of fast-food workers are adults, many of whom are struggling to raise children on a median wage of $8.94.<\/p>\n

A campaign that started in New York City in November 2012, with 200 fast-food workers walking off their jobs demanding $15 and the right to form a union without retaliation, has since spread to more than 150 cities in every region of the country, including the South\u2014and now around the world. The growing fight for $15 has been credited with elevating the debate around inequality in the U.S. When Seattle’s mayor proposed a $15 minimum wage earlier this month, Businessweek said he was \u201cadopting the rallying cry of fast-food workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spread of the worker movement overseas should cause further alarm. International fast-food restaurants are expected to expand at four times the rate of U.S. businesses, according to a recent Merrill Lynch\u00a0report. And while US sales slump, companies like McDonald\u2019s are\u00a0relying on growth overseas to\u00a0boost their bottom lines more than ever.<\/p>\n

For more on last week\u2019s strike and protests, visit fastfoodglobal.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters demonstrate outside McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook. (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune \/ May 21, 2014) Seven Charleston-area fast food workers, including six McDonald\u2019s employees, were arrested Wednesday during a protest at the company\u2019s annual shareholder meeting in Oak Brook, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-network-newsevents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/3870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}