Thursday, May 22, 2014

Protesters at McDonald's headquarters seek wage increase-BBC. Update: 84% of protesters were rent-a-mob bussed in by SEIU, weren't McDonalds workers

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5/22/14, "Send In The Clowns: 84% of McDonald’s Protesters Were Not McDonald’s Employees," LaborUnionReport

"On Wednesday, the Service Employees International Union, as part of its four-year old plan to unionize the nation’s fast-food workers, launched a frontal assault on McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oakbrook, Illinois.

During the event, over 100 protesters, as well SEIU boss and fast-food unionization architect Mary Kay Henry, were arrested.

After her arrest, the SEIU’s self-anointed Burger Queen actually thanked the police on her Twitter feed.

The union’s event planners had rented 32 buses, ensured they had prominent civil rights leaders in tow for photo-ops as they stormed the company’s entrance and, while they had some of McDonald’s 440,000 U.S. employees, the vast majority of protesters (about 84%, according to Bloomberg’s numbers) appear to be nothing more than a rent-a-mob (or astroturf, as the case may be):"...
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5/22/14, "McDonald's vacates headquarters due to worker protests," BBC

"Thousands of protesters marched on a McDonald's campus that houses its Hamburger University training facility, demanding higher wages for workers.

The site of the planned protest was changed after McDonald's vacated its headquarters in the US state of Illinois after consulting with police.

Protesters want the fast food giant pay a minimum wage of $15 (£9) per hour, double the US federal minimum wage.

The company's annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for Thursday.

The closure affected one of five McDonald's corporate buildings and about 3,000 employees.

Protesters - which included a few hundred McDonald's workers - said they were seeking to highlight how low wages have exacerbated income inequality in the US.
 
The protest was planned before the annual shareholder meeting, where a vote is expected on executive pay."...Getty images via BBC

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Comment: I didn't know people were forced to work at McDonald's and were prohibited from seeking better paying jobs elsewhere.





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