McDonald’s says protesters were paid to walk off the job, which strikers say is a corruption of the fact that unions pay arrest fines

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Fast-food giants seem to have trouble believing that anyone could be genuinely displeased with $7.25 an hour.



Last Thursday, thousands of fast-food workers walked out on their jobs to protest their low wages. As part of the protest, the workers participated in acts of civil disobedience such as blocking traffic near the fast-food restaurants.



The response from the companies? McDonald’s and the National Restaurant Association and fast-food giants have claimed that the protesters were paid to protest.



“We reiterate that these are not ‘strikes’ but are staged demonstrations in which people are being transported to fast-food restaurants,” McDonald’s said in a statement. “And, we have received reports that some participants are being paid, up to $500, to protest and get arrested.”

The National Restaurant Association, also known as the other NRA, issued a similar statement claiming the protests were nothing more than “orchestrated union PR events where the vast majority of participants are activists and paid demonstrators”.



Is this true?

Nope. Organizers and protesters have said that no one has received payment to show up and go on strike.

“These are absolutely real workers and McDonald’s is very well aware of that,” says Jennifer Epps-Addison, a campaign leader for Wisconsin Jobs Now. “They are not being paid to participate. Nobody would walk off their job just for a little bit of money. They are walking off their job and they are going out on strike because they are tired and fed up of the working conditions that they are forced to struggle through.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police officers arrest a protester in front of a McDonald’s restaurant in New York’s Times Square. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

So where does the idea come from? It’s a corruption of the fact that unions pay the arrest fines and lost wages of any workers who are hauled into police stations.



“Often times, in labor movements, you’ll have a dedicated strike fund to deal with workers that might be fired, because of their organizing activity,” says Tsedeye Gebreselassie, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project. “It is there to provide money for bail or fines or things like that.”

The recent protests to increase minimum wage for fast-food workers are backed by the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

About 27 workers were arrested in Wisconsin alone. Each detained protester was issued a ticket and was asked to pay a fine of $691.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fast-food workers in Atlanta demanding a raise in the minimum wage in front of a McDonald’s on Ponce de Leon Ave. Ten protesters were arrested. Photograph: Steve Eberhardt/ Steve Eberhardt/Demotix/Corbis

Last week’s protests were well-planned so that workers were saving money and asking for donations to build up the necessary funds, said Epps-Addison of Wisconsin Jobs Now.

It’s also up to the workers to decide if they want to fight the charge or if they want to pay the ticket.



Not every worker allows the strike fund to cover his or her bills.



“[I’ll] pay the ticket. Hey, I was well aware of what I was doing. I was well aware of the legal consequences of my actions. That doesn’t matter when you are fighting for something greater,” says Devonte Yates, a 22-year old McDonald’s worker in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Out of the 27 Wisconsin protesters there is one protester, however, who won’t be able to use the strike fund to pay for her ticket.

“Ethics rules forbid me from paying it through the union resources that the other protesters may have available to them,” Wisconsin Representative Gwen Moore, who was also detained last week when she joined the protesters in Milwaukee, told the Guardian.