CHICAGO (Reuters) – CME Group (CME.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) ejected about 50 activist shareholders from a raucous annual meeting on Wednesday after they shouted for the exchange operator to pay its “fair share” of taxes.

“Pay your fair share! Pay your fair share!” demonstrators chanted as they were escorted out of the meeting room by CME security guards.

Several Chicago police took the group outside, where they were joined by several hundred who had convened at CME’s headquarters. Their chants could be heard as CME Executive Chairman and President Terrence Duffy resumed the meeting.

“There is a perception that we got a tax break,” Duffy said at the outset of the meeting. “This is not true.”

He said the company had been taxed unfairly as if all its business was conducted in Illinois, when much of it is conducted electronically from elsewhere.

CME shareholders, many of whom are traders on CME’s exchanges, are traditionally vocal at their annual meetings, and that tradition continued in an orderly fashion after the activists had left.

Several asked pointed questions about brokerage firm MF Global (MFGLQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), whose failure on October 31 rocked the futures industry and hurt volume at CME. Duffy repeatedly defended CME staff’s actions, saying they did everything they could to keep customers’ money safe.

CHICAGO, May 23 (Reuters) – CME Group’s annual shareholder meeting ground to a halt on Wednesday as activist shareholders shouted for the exchange operator to pay its “fair share” of taxes.

CME security guards forcibly removed shouting and clapping demonstrators from the meeting in its Chicago headquarters.

CME’s Executive Chairman and President Terry Duffy resumed the meeting after the disruption, but chants from a crowd of demonstrators in the street outside the meeting could still be heard inside.

The demonstrators were protesting a move last year by the Illinois legislature to cut about $85 million from CME’s annual tax bill by 2014 after the exchange operator threatened to move out of state.

The demonstrators said the tax breaks would lead to cuts in Illinois social services, such as home health care. Illinois legislators are facing a May 31 deadline to craft a deal to plug the state’s chronic budget deficit.

The Rev. Jason Coulter of Ravenswood United Church of Christ in Chicago asked CME to return the money “to people who so desperately need it” in Illinois.

“To whom much is given, much is expected,” he said. “Much has been given to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by the State of Illinois.”

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Police arrested 15 people blocking the main artery through Chicago’s financial district on Wednesday during a demonstration against state tax breaks won last year by CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange company.

The 15 men and women, three of whom were in wheelchairs, were escorted to the nearby plaza in front of the Chicago Board of Trade building, where they were detained in an area cordoned off with yellow tape while officers wrote tickets. CME owns the Board of Trade, which offers futures on corn, soybeans and Treasuries.

“CME needs to pay their taxes,” said Annette Jones, 69, after she was ticketed and released. She said her job as a home health worker is threatened by state spending cuts, and that if CME paid its “fair share” those cuts might not be necessary.

Most of those arrested were wearing signs on their chests that read, “CME: Give it back” and “Stop home care cuts.”

The demonstration was staged just hours before the CME’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

Late last year the Illinois legislature changed the tax code to cut about $85 million from CME’s annual tax bill by 2014 after the exchange operator threatened to move out of state. The change also gave a $15 million tax break to Sears Holdings, which also had threatened to relocate.

The demonstrators said the tax breaks would lead to cuts in Illinois social services, such as home health care. Illinois legislators are facing a May 31 deadline to craft a deal to plug the state’s chronic budget deficit.

CHICAGO, May 21 (Reuters) – Anti-war protesters staged a peaceful march on the headquarters of U.S. defense contractor Boeing in Chicago on Monday after several days of demonstrations during a meeting of NATO leaders.

Between 200 and 300 demonstrators, some throwing paper planes, gathered in a festive atmosphere that contrasted with fierce clashes with police that led to dozens of arrests and a number of injuries on Sunday.

Occupy Chicago, the local chapter of the loose-knit anti-Wall Street Occupy movement, had promised to shut down Boeing Co’s headquarters, which it called “NATO’s war machine,” and demanded the alliance stop military operations around the world.

“There’s absolutely nothing that could happen in the streets at a protest that holds a candle to the death and destruction caused by NATO to families and communities all around the world,” said Rachel Perrotta of Occupy Chicago.

The demonstrators gathered only briefly outside Boeing’s building and then moved on.

A Boeing spokesman said most of the 500 employees had been urged to stay home and work remotely. Metal barricades protected ground-level windows at the headquarters building, which was guarded by police and security guards.

“We want people to be safe. The office is open today though we’ve encouraged people to work remotely from home,” said Boeing spokesman John Dern.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Thousands of protesters carried their anti-war message to world leaders at a NATO summit on a steamy Sunday, in a mostly peaceful march led by a group of Iraq War veterans who symbolically gave back their military medals.

During the march, a group of black-clad demonstrators darted toward police lines along the route, and some threw water bottles at officers who pushed back and yelled at them to move along, but there were no major incidents.

Police estimated the crowd at 2,500 to 3,000 people, although it appeared to be larger, in what was the biggest rally so far in the week leading up to the NATO summit. Among them was Chicago-based civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, who walked in summer-like heat with a few women bearing a sign reading “Afghans for Peace.”

Riot police made a bigger show of force and watched the march closely than earlier in the week. They were also more open in displaying their equipment including body armor.

Demonstrators ranged from those in festive costumes and a few parents pushing strollers with babies to others in all black with bandannas over their faces and carrying signs including “Anarchists alliance, D.C.”

Demonstrators had little chance of being seen by the world leaders and representatives from some 60 countries at the meeting of the military alliance. The summit site, the McCormick Place convention center, is inside a security zone guarded by tall fences. Protesters were kept blocks away from the convention center.

President Barack Obama, who is hosting the summit in his hometown, kicked off the meeting by greeting NATO members one by one. NATO leaders are seeking to chart a path out of the unpopular war in Afghanistan.

CHICAGO, May 18 (Reuters) – An estimated 2,500 people, including hundreds of nurses, protested peacefully in a downtown Chicago plaza under the watchful eye of police Friday, chanting mostly about economic issues that have little to do with the summit of the NATO military alliance starting this weekend.

The rally, which Chicago police estimated at about 2,500, was the largest so far in a week of daily protests before representatives from 60 countries arrive for the two-day summit to discuss the war in Afghanistan.

Some 150 blue-uniformed Chicago police officers ringed the square, named after Chicago’s legendary former Mayor Richard J. Daley, who presided over bloody clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention.

Political activist Tom Hayden, who was among the leaders of the 1968 anti-war protests, spoke to the rally, reminding the demonstrators of a chapter in history that has sullied Chicago’s reputation ever since.

“It’s been 44 years since I had a permit to speak in Chicago,” Hayden said.

Thousands of security personnel are gathered in Chicago for the summit, ready in case protests turn violent.

But the mood was mostly festive on Friday, with groups of nurses dancing and singing. A few young protesters shouted at police, which attracted more officers and at one point about 50 black-clad protesters entered the plaza.