Two separate protest groups lined the sidewalk outside of McDonald’s new West Loop headquarters at 11 AM Thursday—the day of the fast-food giant’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
Thursday’s action marked the fourth day in a row that groups have voiced their discontent with McDonald’s at its home, which opened in April. Earlier in the week, nearly 150 members of the Fight for $15—a union-backed movement campaigning to raise the pay of minimum-wage workers—chanted slogans like “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, you can’t hide / We can see your greedy side”—and paraded up and down Restaurant Row.
For years, activist groups have regularly picketed outside several of the most high-profile McDonald’s in the company’s hometown and the leafy 86-acre campus in Oak Brook. But that was located in a sleepy and isolated area of the suburbs near a shopping mall and a golf course. Only a limited audience of McDonald’s employees and people in passing cars were likely to see the protesters in action.
The group purposely planned Thursday’s colorful demonstration to coincide with McDonald’s annual shareholders’ meeting. The two-hour action included mobile billboards parked on Randolph Street, an aerial banner flying above the West Loop with a McDonald’s logo that read “Animal cruelty is bad business,” and volunteers passing out informational cards to passers-by. The Humane League’s Sophia Deluz sometimes had trouble keeping up with the hundreds of people strolling past or to McDonald’s on their lunch hour as she implored them to boycott the company.
