McDonald's should pay its workers $15 an hour, Bernie Sanders says [View all]

[Hassin Bin Sober]

McDonald's should pay its workers $15 an hour, Bernie Sanders says

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/04/business/bernie-sanders-mcdonalds/index.html

New York (CNN Business)Amazon? Check. Disney? Check. McDonald's?

The fast food chain is Senator Bernie Sanders' next minimum wage target. He wants McDonald's to give its workers a pay raise to $15 an hour.

In a letter to CEO Steve Easterbrook on Thursday, Sanders demanded McDonald's boost workers' paychecks and let workers unionize. Sanders had previously called on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to increase the company's minimum wage, and Amazon followed through this week.

"If McDonald's raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour and respected the constitutional rights of your workers to form a union, it would set an example for the entire fast food industry to follow," Sanders wrote in a letter addressed to Easterbrook and posted to his Twitter account.

Sanders said he talked to McDonald's employees who complained that their current pay makes getting by difficult. He claimed that many McDonald's employees need federal assistance, including food stamps and public housing.

He added that McDonald's isn't a poor company. The company made a $5.2 billion profit last year on nearly $23 billion in sales. McDonald's is a healthy business: Revenue has increased recently as McDonald's offered better food and technology, and the stock is up nearly 80% since Easterbrook took over in 2015.