Lawmakers Criticize McDonald’s for Spying on 'Fight for $15' Workers

Rep. Mark Pocan, Sen. Ron Wyden, and Rep. Donald Norcross criticized McDonald's for spying on its workers involved in the movement asking for an increase in the minimum wage. 

On Wednesday, Motherboard revealed that McDonald's employs a secretive team of intelligence analysts which spies on its workers involved in the Fight for $15 movement, which advocates for an increase of the minimum wage. According to leaked internal documents the surveillance campaign had the goal of collecting "strategic intelligence" on "counter-parties" as well as "political intelligence on difficult political landscapes in complex markets that could cause significant business disruption and impact returns on investment." McDonald's considers workers involved in the campaign to raise the minimum wage among those "counter-parties." 

Rep. Mark Pocan, who co-chairs the Labor Caucus, said in a statement that “time and time again, we hear corporations like McDonald's use 'safety' as a smokescreen for union-busting and worker harassment."

"If McDonalds cared about their workers’ safety, they wouldn’t force them to live on poverty wages, unable to afford housing, healthcare or food," Pocan said in a statement sent to Motherboard in an email. "Workers at McDonald's across the country have tried to come to the bargaining table to negotiate for better wages, but instead of trying to help the employees they rely on daily, McDonalds chose to surveil and intimidate them when they try to organize for a living wage." 

Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement that "massive corporations like McDonald’s have no business spying on their employees, or interfering in grassroots efforts to earn a more livable wage." 

"If this report is true, they are using extreme, legally dubious, tactics to stamp out legally protected activism," Wyden said in a statement sent to Motherboard in an email. "Incidents like this are why I am a proud cosponsor of the PRO Act, which would strengthen a whole host of worker protections, including protecting electronic communications for organizing purposes."

Rep. Norcross, who is also part of the Labor Caucus, said that “the surveillance allegations made against McDonald’s are deeply troubling.”

“Essential workers have been putting their lives on the line to keep businesses open and our country running during a pandemic. They deserve a raise,” he said in a statement.

“The surveillance allegations made against McDonald’s are deeply troubling,” said Congressman Norcross. “Essential workers have been putting their lives on the line to keep businesses open and our country running during a pandemic. They deserve a raise. 

The McDonald's intelligence team used a social media monitoring tool to keep an eye on workers in an attempt to figure out who was actively involved in the movement and who else they knew and worked with, according to two former McDonald's corporate employees. 

"The idea was to figure out their strategy, counter it, and find out where the key players are, and who they know," one of the sources told Motherboard. 

McDonald's spokesperson Jesse Lewin denied that the company used fake social media accounts "to actively gather information, including labor activity." The spokesperson said that "none of the business intelligence work is related to labor relations." Lewin, however, said that the company's intelligence team works to identify protests that "could put crew and customer safety at risk" and it's "focused on identifying any potential safety threats that could pose harm to our crew, franchisees, and customers."

The news comes in during a national debate over raising the federal minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour for more than 10 years. As part of President Joe Biden's COVID-19 stimulus plan, the administration is proposing to raise the minimum to $15. Some states, such as Florida in November, have already passed laws raising the minimum wage, and there's a broad consensus among voters to increase the minimum pay to $15.   

On Thursday, the Senate Budget Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, held a hearing on the minimum wage, where a McDonald's employee and Fight for $15 activist testified. Sanders invited McDonald's CEO to appear at the hearing, but he declined the invitation. 

This story has been updated to include Rep. Norcross’ statement.