McDonald's franchisees furious over rising costs, many due to policies from the top. Employees were striking over wages recently-and now franchisees are furious over policies from corporate.

"(McDonald's is) doing everything they can to shift costs to operators," said Kathryn Slater-Carter, who owns two California McDonald's. "Putting too much focus on Wall Street is not a good thing in the long run. It is not as profitable a business as it used to be."

Costs in rent, employee training, and operation expenses have gone up.

McDonald's is trying to improve its image and bottom line, but it's doing so "on the backs of franchise  owners", some say.

Corporate and employees are both putting pressure on franchisees, and they are caught between the two.

While the company has done well on Wall Street, franchisee profits have not grown in conjunction. Over the past few years, franchisee costs such as rent and royalties increased eight percent, but revenue only increased four percent.

Traditionally, McDonald's franchisees paid 8.5 percent of store sales in rent. However, some are now paying as much as 12 percent.

McDonald's spokeswoman Heather Oldani said,

"We are continuing to work together with McDonald's owner/operators and our supplier partners to ensure that our restaurants are providing a great experience to our customers, which involves investments in training and technology."

However, franchisees are expected to pay for these investments-and it's left many of them with financial difficulty.

Recently employees also went on strike to protest only being paid $7.25 an hour, which is federal minimum wage.

Walkouts took place in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Mo. and Flint, Mich. Fast Forward and other groups organized the McDonald's walkouts over the past two weeks to protest low wages.