McDonald’s employee arrested for confronting CEO on low wages
A Chicago woman was arrested late last week after confronting the president of her long-time employer McDonald’s over the low wages she earns as she struggles to raise two young children.
Nancy Salgado, 26, interrupted a speech by McDonald’s Corporation
President Jeff Stratton at the Union League Club of Chicago on
Friday, saying her wages weren’t enough for her to supply her
kids with basic necessities like shoes.
“Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25
[per hour] when I've worked for McDonald's for 10 years?”
Salgado, who claimed never to have received a raise in that time,
said at the gathering as Stratton stood at a podium.
"I've been there 40 years," Stratton replied, the extent
of his response to Salgado.
“The thing is that I need a raise. But you're not helping your
employees. How is this possible?” Salgado continued at
Stratton. “To your employees you haven't done anything.”
She and six other protesters were arrested and given tickets for
trespassing.
The group was part of dozens of McDonald's workers, supported by
members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, that
attended the Union League Club event as part of the Fight for
15, a campaign that seeks a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food
workers.
Salgado, single mother of children aged two and seven, is a
cashier at a McDonald’s working 30 to 40 hours a week, she told
The Real News. She has worked at her current McDonald’s position
for 10 months, though says she's worked at various McDonald's
restaurants since age 16.
“[Stratton] needs to know we are what all the employees at
McDonald's are going through,” she said Wednesday. “We're
struggling day-to-day to provide our needs in our houses, things
for our kids. And it's just--it gets harder and harder with just
the poverty wage.”
Salgado said she was quickly approached by authorities at the
event and told she would be arrested.
“I remember just telling them … because I have to speak out my
mind and I had to tell the president the poverty wage I'm living
in, that's just against the law?” she told The Real News.
She said she expects her employer to take some kind of
retaliatory action against her soon.
“There's nothing going around [yet] that I know of. Would
there be? I had some hours cut off,” she said. “Do I feel
they're going to do something against me? I do. You know. They
haven't done anything yet.”
A fair wage to Salgado would be around $15 an hour, she said.
“I love my job. I love interacting with customers. I love
talking with them, even though, like, it means I'm harder, I'm
broken, you know, because sometimes I can't provide a gallon of
milk in the fridge,” she said.
“It's like the CEOs make billions and billions a year. Then
why can't they provide enough for their employees?”
