McDonald's workers take their strike to Downing Street as they demand £15 an hour after boss Steve Easterbrook left firm with £29m over affair with employee

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Beleaguered McDonald's workers are taking their strike for higher wages to Downing Street today.

Staff members at six McDonald's restaurants in London are on 'McStrike' for the day while dozens of protests are taking place in towns and cities across the UK.

Employees are demanding wages of £15 an hour, an end to youth rates, the choice of guaranteed hours of up to 40 hours a week and notice of shifts four weeks in advance.

The action comes after chief executive Steve Easterbrook left the firm with a multi-million pound pay packet after being forced out over a relationship with an employee.

McDonald's workers delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street this afternoon 

Employees (pictured today), are demanding wages of £15 an hour, an end to youth rates, the choice of guaranteed hours of up to 40 hours a week and notice of shifts four weeks in advance

Shadow Brexit Secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, joins Union members and several McDonalds workers as they protest outside a McDonalds drive-thru today

A McDonald's spokesman assured customers the six London stores affected - Wandsworth Town, Downham, Balham, Deptford, Catford and Crayford - will still be open today. 

American businessman Chris Kempczinski became McDonald's chief executive just days ago, after former boss Steve Easterbrook was fired for having a relationship with an unnamed employee.

Mr Easterbrook left with stock awards worth £29 million along with a severance payment of £505,000, and his successor will earn the equivalent of £97,000 a year plus a target bonus of £165,500.

Nick Easterbrook, 52, was fired from his £12 million-a-year chief executive role over a consensual fling with a colleague

Lewis Baker, who works at Crayford McDonald's in London, said he will be striking because he struggles to pay rent on his income of £8.80 an hour.

Mr Baker, 29, said: 'There are a lot of workers who are struggling to pay their bills and get by day to day.

'We don't have set hours, so we don't always earn enough to pay the bills.

'If we got £15 an hour, it would have a massive impact - I would be able to afford to pay my rent, to pay my bills, go on holiday and have some kind of work-life balance.

'I think it's important to strike against massive corporations like McDonald's who are making millions.'

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer met picketers outside Wandsworth McDonald's before they went to Downing Street, to present their demands to the Prime Minister.  

Sir Keir told some 30 campaigners: 'We wanted to take time out of the election campaign to come and stand with you and support your cause, because low pay is completely unacceptable, insecure work is completely unacceptable, no union is completely unacceptable.'

He urged protesters to 'keep going' as they cheered and waved signs reading 'Fight for £15.'

Labour Party shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks during a 'McStrike' demonstration outside Downing Street today 

McDonald's employee Melissa Evans said she was striking to show her son 'there's more to life than this poverty'.

She said: 'We need change right now, we have had enough of living in poverty and working for nothing.

'Right now I don't have a penny to my name. You go home and you just get in your bed and cry yourself to sleep. You wake up and you can still hear the beeps (of McDonald's tills) in your head.'

Former McDonald's employee, Connor McLean-Bolingoli, said he was paid £6.20 an hour when he worked at the fast food outlet as a teenager.

Mr McLean-Bolingoli, 22, said he left the job in December 2017 after being told to work night shifts despite his bosses knowing he was a young carer.

He said: 'The staff are more or less seen as expendable, as they know there will always be new high school and uni students taking up positions.

'I left because I had been scheduled to work overnight shifts for the first time since explaining that, as a carer for my mother, who has MS, I couldn't work overnight shifts.'

The former employee, who now earns double his McDonald's wage, said the low pay for employees translates into bad customer service.

He said: 'I was told by a guy on my first day, 'we don't get paid enough to care about getting normal burgers exactly right', and obviously that attitude lets things down for the customer.'

McDonald's workers want £15 an hour. Action will take place today in countries including the UK, France, Belgium, Chile and New Zealand 

Steve Easterbrook, 52, dated Denise Paleothodoros, 46, (pictured) when she was assigned to the McDonald's account by her PR firm. He has now left the firm after a fling with another female worker

The sacked boss became head of the world's largest fast food chain in 2015 (pictured visiting a store in Sydney this year)

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell joined the workers at Downing Street to challenge their 'poverty wages'.

He said: 'Low pay and insecure work is endemic in the fast food industry.

'A Labour government will take on the big corporations such as McDonald's to stop them from paying out poverty wages.

'Labour's commitment to a £10-an-hour real living wage and an end to in-work poverty will help millions of low-paid workers across the country.'

Anti-poverty charity War on Want, the Trades Union Congress, and the BFAWU is supporting the workers. 

Staff members at six McDonald's restaurants in London will 'McStrike' for the day while dozens of protests will take place in towns and cities across the UK. Pictured, workers in London today 

The strike is taking place on a global day of action for fast food employees called by the International Union of Food Workers, which will see events in countries including France, Belgium, Brazil, Chile and New Zealand.

In the UK, McDonald's workers also want recognition of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union (BFAWU). 

The American fast food company has a market value of £113 billion and employs 130,000 people in the UK.