Well, This Is What I Think

Nancy Salgado campaigns against low wages by trying to tell her boss her situation. Ends up arrested.

The land of the free, eh? Richest country in the world?

Nancy Salgado, 26, was arrested when she tried to use a meeting being addressed by McDonald’s company President to tell her boss that she can’t afford shoes for her kids on her wage of $8.25 an hour after ten years working for the company.

Ms Salgado told The Real News that she felt like she had to speak out during McDonald’s USA President Jeff Stratton’s speech at the Union League Club of Chicago on Friday for the sake of her children.

“It’s really hard for me to feed my two kids and struggle day to day,” she shouted as Stratton was speaking. “Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 when I’ve worked for McDonald’s for ten years?”

“The thing is that I need a raise. But you’re not helping your employees. How is this possible?” Salgado asked.

At that point, someone approached Salgado and informed her that she was going to be arrested.

“The strength was very powerful, like, just remembering the face of my kids, like I say, you know, just simple things like I can’t provide a pair of shoes like everybody else does, sometimes every month, or anything like that,” she said. “And he needs to know we are what all the employees at McDonald’s are going through. 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 they have us living in.”

“They just told me, you know, well, you’re being under arrest because you just interrupted, you trespassed the property. You’re just going to go to jail,” Salgado added. “And what I remember just telling them, ‘well, like, so, 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?’ You know, just be able to speak up your mind and say, you know what, I can’t survive with $8.25? It’s just — it’s ridiculous that I’m going to get arrested. You know.”

“The CEOs make millions and billions a year and why can’t they provide enough for their employees?” she wondered.

Watch this video from The Real News Network, broadcast Oct. 9, 2013.

And anyone who thinks unions, effective minimum wage laws and labor protection laws aren’t needed, well, get real.

If you happen to think this is a disgrace, please post a link to this blog. Somewhere where people will click on it. To our eyes, this woman is a tiny, meaningful, working class hero. Share the blog: please.

So who’s for a McDonald’s boycott until this woman is treated more fairly, and the company president apologises for his cavalier attitude, let alone the appalling wages they pay? Calls for a boycott are popping up everywhere on the interweb.

The facts on low pay, and how much workers earn compared to executives

You can keep in touch with the Low pay Is Not OK campaign in the US on their Facebook page. We recommend educating yourself on the vast disparity in wealth and wages which is accepted as the norm in this industry and others in the USA and elsewhere.

http://www.facebook.com/LowPayIsNotOk