While speaking at the Union League Club of Chicago last October, McDonald’s president Jeff Stratton was interrupted by a mother’s plea for better wages to help her feed and clothe her kids. For that she was threatened with arrest and fined for trespassing.
Mother of two Nancy Salgodoa simply wanted to know if it was fair for her to work for McDonald’s for ten years at $8.25 an hour without a raise. In a later interview she added that she didn’t make enough to buy her kids shoes, and sometimes she had to go to work, ready to multitask and happily greet customers, while worrying if her kids would have enough to eat.
McDonald's has just admitted that its resource website isn't providing workers any real help to deal with the stress of poverty. But when will the company admit it needs to pay U.S. workers more?
Though the company claims it can't afford to, it still makes a hefty profit in Europe and even Australia where the minimum wage is up to 14.50 an hour, says Think Progress.
For having the courage to stand up to this corporate giant and expose its stinginess in a very real way, Salgodoa and six other workers were punished by the Chicago Police.
Tell Chicago to drop these fines and McDonald’s to pay its workers a living wage.
We, the undersigned, support McDonald’s workers’ pleas for better wages.
Nancy Salgodoa’s plea to earn enough to support her kids should have elicited a more sympathetic and honest response from President Jeff Stratton than the one he gave her - that “he had worked for the company for 40 years.”
Stratton insinuates that the company gives workers plenty of opportunity for advancement, which is just a myth, according to communications director, Deivid Rojas, for the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. In fact workers like Salgodoa and Tyree Johnson, 45, who told Chicago Muckrakers he could only afford to live in a cheap hotel - even after working for McDonald’s for 21 years - may give a more accurate picture of the opportunities McDonald’s provides employees.
Finally McDonald’s admits that its resource website had done little if anything to help its employees deal with poverty-related stress issues.
Not only should McDonald’s be called on it’s continued inappropriate response to the urgent and real needs of its workers, but the Chicago Police should be ashamed for putting further financial burden on these protesters for making desperate pleas for fair wages.
We request that Chicago drop the charges against these protesters and McDonald’s pay its workers a fair living wage.
Thanks for your time.
