SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
May, 25 2016, 09:15am EDT
Contact:
Jennifer Owens, 312-218-8785, jennifer@fightfor15.org
Deivid Rojas, 312-219-0008, deivid@fightfor15.org
10,000 Underpaid Workers to Flood McDonald's Shareholder Meeting Demanding $15, Union Rights
Fast-food, home care, child care, and other underpaid workers from across the country who are fighting for $15/hour and union rights will flood McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. this week, waging the biggest-ever series of strikes and protests to hit the company's annual shareholder meeting.
WASHINGTON
Fast-food, home care, child care, and other underpaid workers from across the country who are fighting for $15/hour and union rights will flood McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. this week, waging the biggest-ever series of strikes and protests to hit the company's annual shareholder meeting.
A wave of actions will kick off Wednesday with a strike at the flagship Rock N Roll McDonald's in Downtown Chicago. Striking cooks and cashiers will then join a record 10,000 underpaid workers from across the country for a massive march on McDonald's headquarters in Oak Brook Wednesday afternoon. Thousands of workers will return Thursday to march directly on the company's shareholder meeting.
Fast-food workers will be joined by home care, child care, airport, higher education and other workers to underscore that McDonald's low pay hurts workers across the entire economy.
Wednesday, May 25
11:30 am CT Strike | Rock N Roll McDonald's, 600 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60610
Massive strike at McDonald's flagship store in Downtown Chicago. Striking Chicago fast-food workers available for interview.
5:00 pm CT Protest | 22nd Street and Jorie Blvd., Oak Brook, IL, 60523 (Media can park at 2111 McDonald's Dr.)
10,000 underpaid workers march on McDonald's HQ in Oak Brook.
Thursday, May 26
6am CT Rally | McDonald's Headquarters 2111 McDonald's Dr.
7 am CT March and Protest | Jorie Blvd & Forest Gate Drive, Oak Brook IL, 60523
Thousands of underpaid workers march on McDonald's shareholder meeting.
Workers will stress that while McDonald's stock just hit an all-time high, the $5 billion fast-food giant still pays wages so low that its workers are forced to rely on public assistance to scrape by. Underpaid workers from across the service sector - joined by McDonald's workers from five countries spanning three continents - will demand that McDonald's use its global economic footprint to lift up working families across the economy rather than hold them down.
As McDonald's faces louder calls from workers across the U.S. demanding higher pay and the right to a union, the company is also coming under fire from regulators and elected officials worldwide over a range of harmful business practices, including tax avoidance, labor violations, and anti-competitive practices.
In April, the French government sent a letter to McDonald's demanding the company pay back EUR300 million ($340 million) in unpaid taxes and fines as a result of a scheme that funneled royalties through Luxembourg. Late last year the European Commission opened an investigation into McDonald's over allegations the company avoided more than EUR1 billion in taxes via the same Luxembourg machinations.
Earlier this year, Spanish tax authorities opened a criminal investigation into McDonald's tax avoidance, and leading consumer rights advocates and NGOs petitioned Italy's top tax authorities late last year to investigate McDonald's over allegations that the fast-food giant has dodged at least EUR74 million ($84 million) in taxes owed to Italy since 2009.
In January, Italian consumer groups filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, alleging exorbitant rents and onerous contracts thrust upon franchisees give the company an unfair advantage. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom - the home of turf of CEO Steve Easterbrook - McDonald's is facing more scrutiny than ever before. In April, Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn announced his party's support for a global campaign to hold McDonald's accountable, saying, "We will extend that campaign all across this continent." Also last month, Labour Party leaders barred McDonald's from sponsoring its party's convention because of the company's unfair treatment of workers. Worker protests in the UK forced McDonald's to abandon its controversial zero-hours scheduling policy in which workers are required to be available to work all the time, but receive no set hours.
In March, Brazilian prosecutors launched an investigation of alleged "fiscal and economic crimes" committed by McDonald's, including suspected tax avoidance and violations of Brazil's franchise and competition laws. As McDonald's looks to sell or refranchise thousands of company-owned stores worldwide, the Change to Win Investment group sent a letter to McDonald's Board of Directors earlier this month expressing concern over flagging sales and poor corporate governance by the company's master franchisor in Latin America, Arcos Dorados.
Fast food workers are coming together all over the country to fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. We work for corporations that are making tremendous profits, but do not pay employees enough to support our families and to cover basic needs like food, health care, rent and transportation.
LATEST NEWS
Trump Attack on Trans Athletes Continues as DOJ Sues Minnesota Education Department
"It is astonishing that any president would try to target, shame, and harass children just trying to be themselves, let alone a president with so many actual problems to address," said the state attorney general.
Mar 30, 2026
The US Department of Justice on Monday continued President Donald Trump's crusade against transgender youth competing in sports in line with their identity by suing the Minnesota Department of Education and the state's high school league.
"The United States files this action to stop Minnesota's unapologetic sex discrimination against female student athletes," says the complaint, filed in a federal court in the state by the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.
"The state of Minnesota, through its Department of Education, and the Minnesota State High School League require girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions that are designated exclusively for girls and share intimate spaces, such as multiperson locker rooms and bathrooms, with boys," the complaint continues. "This unfair, intentionally discriminatory practice violates the very core of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972."
The Associated Press noted that "the administration has filed similar lawsuits against Maine and California, and has threatened the federal funding of some universities over transgender athletes, including San José State in California and the University of Pennsylvania."
Tim Leighton, a spokesperson for the league, told the AP that it does not comment on threatened or pending lawsuits. According to The New York Times, Emily Buss, a spokesperson for the state department, said Minnesota's leadership was reviewing the complaint while remaining "committed to ensuring every child—regardless of background, ZIP code, or ability—has access to a world-class education."
While Trump and his allies have aimed to stop all trans women and girls from competing as they identify—including at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles—the fight with Minnesota specifically traces back to the president's February 2025 executive order, after which the administration began investigating the state.
The Minnesota Department of Education gets over $3 billion in federal funding. Democratic state Attorney General Keith Ellison sued to stop the administration from pulling that money last April. In September, the US departments of Education and Health and Human Services concluded that the state agency and league violated Title IX, and the case was referred to the DOJ in January.
In a Monday statement, Ellison said that the DOJ's lawsuit "is just a sad attempt to get attention over something that's already been in litigation for months."
"Donald Trump is currently facing an unpopular war that he launched, rising gas prices, massive health insurance price hikes, and a partial government shutdown caused in part by his ICE agents killing two Minnesotans in broad daylight," Ellison said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "It is astonishing that any president would try to target, shame, and harass children just trying to be themselves, let alone a president with so many actual problems to address."
The DOJ filing about trans student-athletes came less than a week after Ellison and other Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration over its refusal to cooperate with state investigators probing the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents earlier this year, as well as the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, who was wounded but survived.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unforgivably Cynical': Top House Dem Ripped for Siding With Trump on Domestic Spying
“Trump has shown he will abuse every inch of power we give him," said one critic. "So you would think that given an opportunity to check his authority and protect Americans, Democrats would jump at the chance."
Mar 30, 2026
Critics denounced the top Democrat on the US House Intelligence Committee after he said Monday that he would vote to extend a highly controversial authorization for warrantless government spying sought by President Donald Trump that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times under various administrations.
While acknowledging that many of his Democratic colleagues will vote against reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they do not trust Trump to use the provision's sweeping surveillance powers legally, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) signaled that he would support renewal and vote against any efforts for privacy protections.
“There’s a lot of people who are going to switch from yes two years ago to no today," Himes told The Hill. "Because even though Donald Trump’s been president for five years, and he has never abused the program—I would know it pretty much in real time if he did—even though that’s true, people don’t trust Donald Trump."
"And you know, that word came up a lot in the classified briefing; there’s a huge trust gap here," he added. "So there’s going to be a lot of people switching on the Democratic side from yes to no.”
While Section 702 ostensibly limits warrantless surveillance to non-US citizens, such spying also captures the communications of Americans. The measure has been abused at least hundreds of thousands of times, including to spy on protestors, congressional donors, journalists, and others.
“Donald Trump has shown he will abuse every inch of power we give him," Sean Vitka, executive director of the pro-democracy group Demand Progress, said in a statement Monday. "So you would think that given an opportunity to check his authority and protect Americans, Democrats would jump at the chance."
"But instead, Rep. Jim Himes is failing his critical role as an overseer of intelligence agencies and using his political power to lobby his fellow Democrats in service of the Trump administration domestic surveillance agenda," Vitka continued. "It is unforgivably cynical and reckless for Rep. Himes to make it easier for this administration to spy on Americans, especially at a time when government agencies’ have made it clear that they intend to supercharge surveillance with [artificial intelligence], and when their misuse of these powers is horrifically on display.”
Nearly 100 civil society groups including Demand Progress are urging congressional Democrats to "stand firm" and vote against Section 702 reauthorization without reforms, including closing the so-called data broker loophole.
Among the Democratic lawmakers reportedly considering voting against the extension is Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who voted for reauthorizing Section 702 in 2024—when Congress extended the spying power until April 20, 2026.
“I supported it because I felt very comfortable that... additional guardrails were safeguarding Americans’ privacy in a sufficiently significant way as to justify the importance of getting this information on an urgent basis," he told The Hill. "And as a former prosecutor, I know how difficult it can be to get a search warrant, and especially in these cases where there often isn’t even probable cause, but my vote was taken on the expectation that the law would be implemented as written."
“And we now have an administration that has routinely, repeatedly, regularly—and seemingly and intentionally—violated numerous laws, undermined the Constitution, attacked our democracy, and simply cannot be trusted with the privacy information that is included in the materials gathered and potentially searched," Goldman continued.
"So unless I receive a lot more information about every single search for a US person that has been done by this administration since they came into office, I don’t see how I can possibly support the reauthorization," he added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hegseth Says Trump Has Vision of 'Greater North America.' Critics Alarmed by 'Greater Israel' Parallel
"Right now the US and Israel are realizing 'Greater Israel' by attacking-invading Lebanon and Iran," said one professor. "Hegseth is saying it's Greenland, Cuba, Canada, and Mexico next."
Mar 30, 2026
Alarm mounted Monday over the Trump administration's "Greater North America" plan, a geopolitical blueprint for US imperial hegemony from Greenland to Guyana that's drawing comparisons with a messianic project being pushed by President Donald Trump's far-right allies and war partners in Israel.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first unveiled the plan earlier this month, telling reporters: "Trump has drawn a new strategic map, from Greenland to the Gulf of America to the Panama Canal and its surrounding countries. At the Department of War we call this strategic map the Greater North America."
"Why? Because every sovereign nation and territory north of the Equator, from Greenland to Ecuador and from Alaska to Guyana, is not part of the 'Global South,'" Hegseth added. "It is our immediate security perimeter in this great neighborhood that we all live in."
Graeme Garrard, a Canadian professor at Cardiff University in Wales, said Monday on social media in response to Hegseth's comments: "By 'Greater North America' he means 'Greater United States. The US is now and has long been a menace and threat to the sovereignty and independence of its hemispheric neighbors."
Numerous observers have compared Trump's "Greater America" with the "Greater Israel" movement, whose most zealous proponents want to conquer everything between the Nile and Euphrates rivers—that is, all of Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan; most of Syria and Kuwait; large parts of Egypt and Iraq; and some of Turkey—for Israel.
"Hesgeth's 'Greater North America' should be taken VERY seriously as a real threat," University of Lausanne professor Julia Steinberger, who is Swiss-American, said on social media. "Right now the US and Israel are realizing 'Greater Israel' by attacking-invading Lebanon and Iran. Hegseth is saying it's Greenland, Cuba, Canada, and Mexico next."
Based on the biblical boundaries of ancient Jewish kingdoms, Greater Israel is rooted in the supremacist supposition that the Abrahamic deity figure God promised the Jews all of the lands between the Nile and Euphrates.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—and other prominent right-wing Israelis support the Greater Israel vision and are working to make it a reality by accelerating the illegal settler colonization and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, preparing to annex the dwindling Palestinian territories, and planning to occupy—perhaps permanently—parts of Syria and Lebanon.
For nearly two centuries, claims of divine favor have also underpinned US expansionism, most famously expressed in Manifest Destiny and mid-19th century plans to annex lands "from the Arctic to the Tropic." This notion drove the US conquest of half of Mexico, as well as later takeovers of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The US also took control over the Panama Canal, which it built at the cost of thousands of laborers' lives, most of them from Barbados and other West Indies isles.
"It is part of the great law of progress that the weak should give way to the strong, and that the superior should displace the inferior races," one New Orleans newspaper opined in 1848.
Nearly 178 years later, Hegseth echoed this supremacist ideology, telling Latin American leaders that the region must remain "Christian nations under God" and stand united in the face of "radical narco-communism."
Like the 19th century US imperialists, Trump has also repeatedly expressed his goal of "taking Cuba"—an objective that goes back over 200 years, when Thomas Jefferson, then a former president, called the island “the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular