'Not Lovin' It': Low-Wage Workers Met by Riot Police Outside McDonald's HQ
Published on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 by Common Dreams
'Not Lovin' It': Low-Wage Workers Met by Riot Police Outside McDonald's HQ
Over a hundred arrested protesting on eve of shareholder meeting
- Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Thousands of demonstrators staging a peaceful protest at the McDonald's headquarters were met by police in riot gear on Wednesday when the low-wage fast food workers and their supporters stormed the Illinois campus to say: "Make our Wage Supersize!"
The protest was held on the eve of the fast food giant's annual shareholder meeting at the company's corporate campus outside Chicago, during which activist shareholders are expected to vote against CEO Donald Thompsons $9.5m pay package, the Guardian reports. Protesters are also planning to picket that meeting.
"We went on strike, we protested, we asked politely and now we got arrested to make sure McDonalds hears us, said Ashona Osborne, a McDonalds employee from Pittsburgh who was one of the 101 people arrested at the demonstration. I came to McDonalds shareholders meeting because I want the company to take me seriously and know that I'm a mother who is sick of struggling to support her son."
Two thousand people from cities across the United States marched onto the campus chanting, "Hey McDonalds You Cant Hide, We Can See Your Greedy Side, and No Big Macs, No Fries, Make our Wage Supersize, before holding sit-in, blocking the entrance. As they marched deeper into the campus the protesters were met by a line of police officers in riot gear.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/21-9
TexasTowelie
(112,250 posts)they should be a common occurrence. Make the board of trustees drive through a throng of protesters until they raise wages and cut fat-cat salaries.
Did the peasants step outside of our "free speach zone"? But Bundy`s supporters can get away with pointing guns at federal agents.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)modrepub
(3,496 posts)with the current system. Shareholder votes are rigged from the get go. Board members and CEOs hold millions of shares of stock in the companies they work for. Large blocks of shares are held by financial firms and mutual funds. Both of these groups don't even have to vote up or down on CEO and upper management salaries; nonvoting shares are voted in favor of whatever the board recommends. The CEO of McDonald's pay package was approved by 90+% of the shareholders.
You want reform then publish how board and CEOs are voting their shares for their compensation. Demand voting rights for those who own shares through mutual funds and break out the shareholder votes into FOR, AGAINST and NOT VOTING (and make NOT VOTING a separate category and not counted towards the board recommendations). This is the only way to democratize corporate america.