Workers Sue McDonald's For Allegedly Stealing Wages

REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonMcDonald's workers in three states have filed lawsuits against the fast food chain, alleging that they were illegally underpaid.

The lawsuits, filed in California, Michigan and New York, claim that McDonald's and several franchise owners refused to pay overtime and erased hours from employee timecards, effectively stealing their pay.

"Our wages are already at rock bottom," Sharnell Grandberry, a McDonald's worker and plaintiff in the Michigan lawsuit, said in a press release. "It is time for McDonald's to stop skirting the law to pad profits. We need to get paid for the hours we work."

We have reached out to McDonald's for comment on the lawsuits and will update when we hear back.

The lawsuits were announced on a conference call Thursday with organizers of the labor group that is fighting for higher wages for fast food workers. The group, which wants a $15 minimum wage, has been organizing worker strikes across the U.S. for the last two years.

The average fast food worker makes roughly $9 an hour.

If the claims in the lawsuits are true, they would be violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which regulates minimum wage, overtime pay, and other labor practices.

Since 1985, McDonald's has been found in violation of the FLSA and had to pay back wages more than 300 times, according to CNN.