McDonald’s workers protest for wages, unions

Last winter, Aliek Rhodes was behind the register at an east side McDonald’s when he found himself in the middle of an armed robbery with a gun pointed at his head.

“It was traumatic and sometimes I feel like it can happen again,” he said.

The incident propelled him to join the campaign to change workplace conditions for McDonald’s employees. Rhodes said McDonald’s failed to provide adequate safety plans and failed to offer counseling or support to staff after the incident. In fact, Rhodes added, he was back at work the next day.

On Thursday, he joined over 40 protesters — a mix of food workers and allies from local organizations — at the McDonald’s on West Good Hope Road. It was the latest in a string of protests aimed to persuade executives to raise minimum pay to $15 an hour, give workers the right to unionize and enact policies to end workplace sexual harassment. Similar Fight For $15 demonstrations were held in more than a dozen cities around the country to coincide with the McDonald’s shareholders meeting in Dallas.

“The CEO and big execs are all gathering there to talk about the money we’ve made them and how they’re going to spend those billions of dollars,” Rhodes told the crowd. “But they’re not planning to discuss the problems that we’re facing on the job.”

Shortly after noon, Milwaukee protesters began to march through the McDonald’s parking lot. When a manager and worker blocked restaurant entrances, the group gathered on the sidewalk. They shouted call and response chants such as, “Hold the burger, hold the fries, make our wages super-sized!”

State Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, a candidate for Milwaukee’s Common Council, joined the group. She spoke of her work to ensure workers at the new Bucks arena could unionize and said big corporations such as McDonald’s have rigged the system.

“What’s good for the Bucks ought to be good for McDonald’s,” she said.

But it’s not just local officials that lent their voice to the day’s protests; 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Bill de Blasio and Jay Inslee joined demonstrations in other cities, and Bernie Sanders hosted a video town hall for protesters on site at the shareholder’s meeting.

McDonald’s announced this spring that it would no longer lobby against raising the minimum wage. In a letter to the National Restaurant Association, its vice president of government relations said the company believes wage increases should be phased in and all industries treated the same.

Workers in the group said they want a seat at the decision-making table and Rhodes wants McDonald’s to know that they’re ready to talk.

“Me and my coworkers deserve a fair shot,” he said. “That’s why we’re gonna keep organizing, defending our rights and use our voting power.”