Fast-Food Worker Pay Set to Rise in California Under Union Deal

livemint.com:

Fast-food workers in California are poised to get a $20 minimum wage next year under a deal announced Monday between labor unions and the restaurant industry, potentially killing a multimillion-dollar referendum that was slated to go on the state’s November 2024 ballot. Under the deal, state fast-food workers at chains with at least 60 national locations must be paid an hourly wage of $20 as of April 2024. California’s minimum wage is currently set at $15.50, and is poised to rise to $16 an hour in January.

The deal, if approved by both houses of the state legislature by Thursday, would supplant a law passed last year that created a sharp fight between unions and the restaurant industry. That law would have established state-appointed fast-food advisory councils that could have raised sector pay to up to $22 an hour and would have had additional oversight over restaurants. Under the new deal, beginning in 2025, the councils can only set annual fast-food wages to increase by a maximum of 3.5%.

That authority would end in 2029. The council can only make policy recommendations to the governing state agency for consideration. An estimated half a million people work in fast food in California, the largest number in any one state.

An approved agreement will put an end to a 2024 industry-backed referendum on the fast-food councils that would have repealed the law passed last year. The deal’s terms say that a separate bill moving through the state legislature that would have held restaurant companies more accountable for the employment practices of their franchisees would be stripped of that provision and amended to include the new hourly wage parameters. With legislators facing a tight deadline to pass final bills by midnight