On May 25, 2016 Chicago was the center of the Fight For 15 movement, hosting low wage activists from around the world who converged upon the McDonald's International shareholders meeting. Mobilizing were not only McDonald's workers, but home care, airport and warehouse workers, colleges professors, to name just a few.

And, on May 12 a rally here underscored that fast food workers in Illinois must rely on public assistance for basic needs, to the tune of $368 million annually. So Illinois taxpayers foot the bill so companies like McDonald's can get away with paying slave wages. This corrupt arrangement negatively impacts the state's public sector funding. It's the private sector-public sector political connection, and it makes public and private sector workers allies in struggle.

A large, internationally represented protest at Chicago's Rock and Roll McDonald's in the morning of the 25th was followed by an afternoon action and overnight sleepover in front of McDonald's Global HQ in nearby Oak Brook, where the shareholders were meeting. The spirits of a few thousand marchers were not dampened by a spectacular deluge that in fact "added to the magic of it" as a worker from New Zealand put it. We see here an international movement of low wage earners mobilizing against global corporate greed. But their goal is not only living wages. One worker told us: "Union rights are also a significant part of our fight. Union rights protects our jobs."

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