News

McDonald's employees plan global strike next week

November 7, 2014

McDonald's workers from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles will travel to eight countries on three continents beginning Monday as part of their protest for higher wages.

"This fast food worker movement is teaching a lot of people like me that we can speak up for ourselves, that we have rights, and that we deserve more for our families. We're eager to take that lesson and share it with workers overseas," Chicago McDonald's employee Dora Peña said in a news release. "We're a global movement now."

She has worked for the company as a custodian and cook for eight years and is paid $8.65 an hour, the release said.

The trip was organized by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, a federation composed of 396 trade unions in 126 countries representing a combined 12 million workers.

McDonald's workers from New York City's Fast Food Forward will travel to Denmark, Scotland, England and France; McDonald's workers from the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago are going to Argentina and Brazil; and McDonald's workers from Fight for $15 LA are headed to Japan and the Philippines.

Their trip will be documented on Twitter at #fastfoodglobal.