Farmworkers labor in massive fields of potatoes grown to meet McDonald’s demands. The pesticides poison them, nearby children, and rural communities. Thousands of workers chop, cook, and serve the fries made from those potatoes for poverty wages and few or no benefits. Children suffer from an epidemic of diet-related diseases in part because McDonald’s uses predatory marketing tactics to peddle those fries and other junk food at schools and in hospitals.
It’s clear: Our food system is broken. That breakdown makes us sick and devastates our environment. And for decades, McDonald’s has been at the core of the problem.
And this year, McDonald’s has made it even more difficult for people to speak out and demand change. For the first time ever, McDonald’s isn’t holding its shareholders’ meeting at its Chicago-area headquarters. It’s in an expensive hotel. In Dallas. Inside the airport.
McDonald’s is making its shareholders’ meeting less accessible because of the impact that people like you have had. From workers filing sexual harassment complaints, to educators demanding an end to predatory marketing, there’s a growing movement of people demanding transparency and accountability. But McDonald’s can’t hide. I’m here with labor and animal rights allies to expose its abuses and demand a more just, healthy, and nourishing food system.
This is the moment to hold McDonald’s accountable for its abusive practices. Even as it’s not adequately addressing the concerns of the people its products are harming, this shareholders’ meeting will be a pep rally with the corporation’s CEO and other top executives acting as cheerleaders.
But we’ll be there to pull back the veil on McDonald’s abuses. We’re taking your demands directly to those in charge and the shareholders they report to.
The shareholders’ meeting is a rare moment where we speak truth to power face to face. And it’s a moment when the press is paying attention.
That’s why it’s so critical to be here in person, going toe-to-toe with executives.
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