Employees are demanding higher wages from the multi-billion dollar fast food company, McDonald’s, as well as other employees from various fast food places and restaurants.
Thousands of McDonald’s workers protested outside the company’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois while the company had their big annual two day meeting. They are demanding an increase in minimum wage from the $7.25 most are receiving now to $15 an hour.
Protests from minimum wage worker in the food and retail industry have become a common occurrence and have created a national debate on each states minimum wage.
McDonald’s has already responded to their employees wage complaints before and have even improved their wages, but it does not seem to be enough.
A McDonald’s employee, Tyree Johnson, 47, was among the protesters Wednesday May 20 and told Reuters, “They keep telling me they value me but they don’t give me more money.”
Johnson has been a loyal worker to the franchise, being with the company since 1992 and his hourly pay is still only $8.55 an hour. He says he is forced to live in a men’s hotel because he is unable to pay for rent to get his own apartment.
According to McDonald’s, they regularly check on wage issues and respect their employees “right to peacefully protest” says Heidi Barker, the company’s spokeswoman.
The new chief executive, Steve Easterbrook, has already made changes by increasing the locally mandated minimum wage by $1, but it will not be effective till July 1. McDonald’s is expecting to slowly increase their wage and is projected to be $10 per hour by 2016.
Yet, not all McDonald’s locations will see this change. In fact only 9,000 workers and 1,500 U.S. store locations will benefit from their increases. That is leaving out about 660,000 employed McDonald’s workers.
And even with the increase, many workers say it is still too low to make any real effect. They still can not afford housing and living expenses on the salary they promise.
The employer’s protest have reached out to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who is challenging the franchise through legislative and regulatory channels.
During the meeting Wednesday head pension fund leaders told McDonald’s and similar companies that they may be hurting their own company’s future by keeping an excessive amount of money for their investors instead of returning the excess money to employers.
Many states are slowly increasing their minimum wages and are already above the average $7.25 per hour federal minimum.
Image via Reuters/Lucas Jackson
