After a well-publicized announcement earlier this week when the fast food giant announced they'd be raising McDonald's workers' pay by $1, above the federal minimum wage; however, the fast food workers have refused to bulge in their demands, calling the move a "stunt" for the chain to appease them and get better press.
Last Thursday, Food World News reported that the biggest fast food chain in the world had announced that McDonald's workers serving directly under the company would be getting a pay rise; however, this announcement doesn't affect the company's franchised restaurants, which comprise about 90 percent of the McDonald's locations throughout the United States.
According to Forbes, McDonald's workers around the country took to the streets in protest for the move, basically calling it too little an effort; due to the franchise's contracts, owners of other restaurants are the ones that get to decide the wages for their workers, and in many cases these are actually lower than the minimum wage.
The magazine interviewed several McDonald's workers protesting outside the Manhattan Fifth Avenue location, including Jorel Ware, a Bronx employee, who stated that the whole thing was a stunt and the workers were asking for $15 an hour and the right to create a union, something that doesn't yet exist within the Golden Arches chain.
The Guardian reports that McDonald's workers plan to go through a major nationwide protest on April 15, in an ongoing problem that's been giving the major fast food chain headaches for the past three years, as a growing number of workers in the country's restaurants have stood against the chain's deplorable working conditions.
According to Vox, the reason the recent announcement from McDonald's specified that the pay rise would only apply to their own restaurants is that they're in the midst of a legal battle that's currently in the National Labor Relations Board, as it's been said that McDonald's is an "overbearing" franchiser that takes control though not responsibility over the conditions of McDonald's workers.
