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Demanding 'What We Need to Survive,' Workers to Descend on McDonald's Shareholders Meeting

Demanding ‘What We Need to Survive,’ Workers to Descend on McDonald’s Shareholders Meeting

Common Dreams

Andrea Germanos

As McDonald’s prepares to hold its annual meting on Thursday, low wage workers—buoyed by successes from the “unstoppable” Fight for $15 movement—are gearing up to confront the burger giant and again demand a decent wage and union rights.

McDonald’s is also facing heat this week over its controversial “McTeacher’s Nights.”

During these fundraising events, McDonald’s further markets itself to children by having teachers “work” and serve the fast food fare to their young students, and in so doing, says the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, the events

“encourage students to eat junk food, undermining the hard work that parents, teachers, and administrators do to promote healthy habits for children. Parents and students trust teachers to do what’s best for students’ health. By enlisting teachers to market junk food to kids, McDonald’s manipulates that trust. In the midst of one of the largest preventable health crises in the U.S. — one that is closely linked to diet and increasingly affects children — it’s deeply irresponsible for McDonald’s to exploit limited school budgets to market fast food to children.”

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood joined other advocacy groups Public Citizen and Corporate Accountability International this week in gathering roughly 30,000 petition signatures to McDonald’s executives urging an end to the events.

“This profit-driven marketing ploy disproportionately targets children and takes advantage of the important relationships built on trust that students and teachers share,” said Kristen Strader, campaign coordinator for Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert program, in a media statement.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/25/demanding-what-we-need-survive-workers-descend-mcdonalds-shareholders-meeting