Low Wage Workers Protest Outside McDonald’s HQ, at Capitol in Springfield
Hundreds of fast food and other low wage workers along with community activists protested outside McDonald’s corporate headquarters and later at the Capitol building in Springfield on Monday to demand higher wages and union rights. Monday’s actions - where many risked arrest and some were escorted out of the building by Capitol Police in Springfield - are part of a broader six-week campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience organized by the labor movement called the Poor People’s campaign, named after the historic Memphis sanitation strike organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. "We are cooks and cashiers who work behind the company's counters, grills and fryers across the country," read a letter delivered to McDonald’s headquarters by workers. "And we are calling on McDonald's to use its massive power and wealth to lift up people of color and our communities rather than keep us locked in poverty." In Springfield, demonstrators also called for a statewide $15 an hour minimum wage and protections against voter suppression.