Minimum wage competitive says receiver of $9.5M pay package
McDonald's offers “real careers” and “competitive wages”, CEO Don Thompson told shareholders on Thursday, as hundreds of protesters chanted for better pay outside the fast-food giant’s annual meeting.
As demonstrators staged a second day of protests against the company’s wage scale outside the company’s suburban Chicago headquarters, Thompson told shareholders: "We believe we pay fair and competitive wages.”
“I know we have people outside,” said Thompson. “I think that McDonald’s provides more opportunity than any other company … We continue to believe that we pay fair and competitive wages,” he said.
Thompson said the company offered opportunities to young people, and the training for them to build careers. “McDonald’s has done that throughout time, and will continue to do that,” he said.
Outside the meeting, from which journalists were barred, protesters called on the company to raise its wages to a minimum of $15 an hour. On Wednesday, 139 people, including 101 fast-food employees, were arrested after staging a protest outside the company’s headquarters.
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Thompson comfortably survived a vote questioning his $9.5m pay package for 2013. The “say on pay” protest vote was organised by Change to Win Investment Group (Ctw), which recently won a similar vote at Chipotle, which is now reviewing executive compensation.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/22/mcdonalds-ceo-protesters-headquarters-agm-chicago
