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For Immediate Release
May, 25 2016, 09:15am EDT
Wednesday 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
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.
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A U.S. judge on Friday ordered the return of a Maryland resident who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador last month, according to The Associated Press.
Prior to issuing the ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis called the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia "an illegal act."
The judge, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, gave the Trump administration end of the day of the day on Monday to bring him back to the United States.
Supporters outside the courtroom cheered as the judge handed down her order, according to The Washington Post.
Responding to the ruling on social media, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said: "This is a big win. Now Trump must comply with the judge's order."
Immigration lawyer Ava Benach wrote: "The right decision. How the government reacts will tell us so much about how far down the road to autocracy we are."
The right decision. How the government reacts will tell us so much about how far down the road to autocracy we are.
[image or embed]
— avabenach.bsky.social (@avabenach.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Abrego Garcia was among hundreds of people the administration expelled in mid-March to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador after targeting them for alleged gang ties.
In a court papers filed earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting field office director admitted that the removal of Abrego Garcia on March 15 "was an error."
Abrego Garcia was deported despite the fact that in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to his native El Salvador because he would likely face gang persecution there.
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Axiosreported Friday that at least two DOGE staffers "now have offices at" the FTC. According toThe Verge, two DOGE members "were spotted" at the agency's building this week and "are now listed in the FTC's internal directory."
The Verge noted that the FTC is "a fairly lean agency with fewer than 1,200 employees," a number that the Trump administration has already cut into with the firing of some of the department's consumer protection and antitrust staff.
At least two of Musk's companies, Tesla and X, have faced scrutiny in recent years from the FTC, which is now under the leadership of Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, who previously pledged to roll back former chair Lina Khan's anti-monopoly legacy.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which referred to the operatives as Musk's "minions," said Friday that "DOGE is yet again raiding a federal watchdog tasked with protecting working Americans from Wall Street and Big Tech."
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Ferguson pledged in a social media post Thursday that under his leadership, the FTC "will be watching closely" to ensure companies don't view Trump's tariffs "as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior."
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Peterson-Cassin said Friday that "the only winners" of DOGE's targeting of the FTC "are Trump's billionaire besties like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and especially Musk, who now stands to gain access to confidential financial information about every company ever investigated by the FTC, including the auto manufacturers, aerospace firms, internet providers, tech companies, and banks that directly compete with his own companies."
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'There Will Be Blood': JPMorgan Hikes Odds of Trump-Triggered Recession to 60%
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty."
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Alarm over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs continues to grow, with stocks plummeting and JPMorgan warning that "the risk of recession in the global economy this year is raised to 60%, up from 40%."
After China announced new 34% tariffs on all American goods beginning next week, The Associated Pressreported Friday that "the S&P 500 was down 4.8% in afternoon trading, after earlier dropping more than 5%, following its worst day since Covid wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,719 points, or 4.3%, as of 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 4.9% lower."
Noting the state of Wall Street this week, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens declared in a Friday statement that "Trump has officially brought the economy to its knees."
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty," she said. "To call this an economic downturn is an understatement; Trump is marching us straight into a depression."
Political and economic observers have been publicly wondering for weeks if Trump is intentionally crashing the economy. Further fueling those fears, he ramped up his trade war on Wednesday by announcing a minimum 10% tariff for imports, with higher levies for dozens of countries. Although he claimed those steeper duties are "reciprocal," his math "horrified" economists and has been called "crazy."
Responding in a Thursday note titled, There Will Be Blood, head of global economic research Bruce Kasman and other experts at JPMorgan wrote that "if sustained, this year's ~22%-point tariff increase would be the largest U.S. tax hike since 1968."
"The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified—through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions," states the note, which came before China's announcement.
As Bloombergreported:
Several Wall Street firms on Thursday warned of a U.S. recession, with some making it their base case, after... Trump announced major levies on goods imported from countries around the world. Other economists, including those at JPMorgan, said the hit could be big, though they are taking a wait-and-see approach before revising their projections.
The announcement rocked global financial markets, and the S&P 500 suffered its worst day since 2020. Trump, speaking on Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, said he was open to reducing tariffs if trading partners were able to offer something "phenomenal."
"We are not making immediate changes to our forecasts and want to see the initial implementation and negotiation process that takes hold," the JPMorgan note says. "However, we view the full implementation of announced policies as a substantial macroeconomic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts. We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year."
The team also pointed out that the United States is in potential danger no matter how other countries are ultimately impacted, calling a "scenario where rest of world muddles through a U.S. recession possible but less likely than global downturn."
As Common Dreams reported last week, in anticipation of Trump's tariff announcement, Goldman Sachs published a research note projecting that the odds of a recession in the next year are 35%, up from 20%.
Other financial industry research firms that have recently warned of a possible recession include Barclays, BofA Global Research, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Global Wealth Management, according toReuters.
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Experts have made similar comments to the press in the wake of the president's Rose Garden remarks on Wednesday. Time on Friday shared some from Brian Bethune, a Boston College economics professor:
"[Consumers] are not even going to the grocery store and paying more for vegetables because there's none available from Mexico, or going to Whole Foods, for example, and finding the big sections of fresh fruit are being shut down. They haven't really felt the full impact [yet], and they're already saying something isn't right," Bethune says.
However, while some economists... are more cautious in their discussion about a possible recession, Bethune says it's "inevitable." The question, he says, is just how long until it happens and for how long will it occur? He sees Trump's admission of there being " some pain" on the horizon as only proof of the inevitability.
"At least they [the Trump administration] are not pretending that it's not disruptive, but they're basically soft-selling it, reflecting their ignorance about the way business operates," Bethune claims.
Also on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest U.S. jobs data. Although the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2% in March, the economy added 228,000 jobs, which was better than expected.
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