There’s a campaign currently underway, by means of petitions, to embarrass McDonalds into paying a living wage. I doubt the high rollers in the company’s hierarchy will be moved—that’s why they pay PR flacks the big bucks (instead of distributing that same cash to their workers). Zilloinaire holders of McDonalds stock will not care either, remaining comfortably in the shadows as they enjoy their completely unearned (in the sense that McDonalds’ peonry earns its wages) dividends.
But what if—
A person goes into McDonalds, orders a big meal (of whatever—I don’t know what they serve, having not been in one in many years), dawdling at the cash register (“Do I want a dessert with that? How many calories is the [whatever]? Is that more calories than the [whatever]?”, etc.) just long enough for the preparation of the meal to be well underway. Then, once the components of the meal are finalized and it is already assembled, the person reaches in his pocket in a search for money that’s obviously missing.
“Oops,” he says at last. “Sorry, I don’t have any money. I work for the McDonalds down the road, and so I don’t have any money for food.” He apologizes and goes away. What can they do to him? He’s broken no laws.
Now, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, what if fifty people a day were to do this at every McDonalds restaurant across the country, so that even the mainstream media pricks up its ears and covers the story—they (those CEOs and investors, normally hermetically sealed against the travails of the working class) might think it’s a movement, and at least sit up and pay attention? This could also translate to Walmart and other wage-gougers across the country, who have equally deaf-to-the-cries-of-the-middle-class CEOs and investors. One thing that will always get a rise out of the plutocracy is bad publicity.
And fear of bad PR, my friends, might just be the beginning of wisdom.