• Chicago Breaking Business, Friday, May 21, 2010 10:33 AM

"Ronald McDonald is not retiring," McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner told a receptive audience at the company's annual meeting yesterday. "He is a force for good ... he does not hawk food." And when a retired physician later asked the company to stop using the mascot, audience members called out, "No, no."

Wailin Wong reports that costumed activists from Corporate Accountability International waved signs at the entrance of the McDonald's campus in Chicago yesterday as meeting attendees arrived. Senior organizer Deborah Lapidus has called for Ronald's retirement and the end of marketing to children.

Shareholder activists struck out on two other fronts. Proposals to give investors an advisory vote on executive compensation and to use a different method of slaughtering chickens in the U.S. also failed to pass.

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