"Fight for $15" & The Union Efforts Get a Big Push in Calif's Fast Food Bill
"One of the most significant pieces of employment legislation passed in a generation"

California Approves Nation-Leading 'Fast Recovery Act' - Groundbreaking Legislation Giving Half-Million Fast Food Workers Increased Power & Protections

AB Bill 257: The Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act or FAST Recovery
Covering fast food restaurants with at least 100 establishments nationally.

The bill will create a new 10-member Fast Food Council with equal numbers of workers’ delegates and employers’ representatives, along with two state officials, empowered to set minimum standards for wages, hours and working conditions related to the health, safety, and welfare of, and supplying the necessary cost of proper living to fast food restaurant workers.

The bill would also authorize a county, or a city with a population greater than 200,000, to establish a Local Fast Food Council, and would prescribe its powers and requirements for its composition. The bill would authorize a Local Fast Food Council to provide recommendations to the council.

This bill would require standards for minimum wages, maximum hours of work, and other working conditions fixed by the council to be the minimum standards for fast food restaurant employees, absent a valid collective bargaining agreement, as specified, and would require that they be enforced by the commissioner, as specified, and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. By expanding the application of crimes associated with those enforcement procedures, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner and the commissioner’s deputies to take assignments of violations of standards issued by the council upon the filing of a claim in writing by an employee or an employee’s authorized representative.

A late amendment would cap any minimum wage increase for fast food workers at chains with more than 100 restaurants at $22 an hour next year, compared to the statewide minimum of $15.50 an hour, with cost of living increases thereafter.

This bill would prohibit a fast food restaurant operator from discharging or in any manner discriminating or retaliating against any fast food restaurant employee for specified reasons and would create a cause of action and right to reinstatement for employees in this connection, as well as a presumption of unlawful discrimination and retaliation in certain circumstances.

What they're saying:

Union organizers and other advocates say wage theft and other exploitations are common in the fast food industry.

The debate has drawn attention nationwide, including on Capitol Hill where Democratic U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna has expressed hope it will trigger similar efforts elsewhere.

It's “one of the most significant pieces of employment legislation passed in a generation," said Columbia Law School labor law expert Kate Andrias. She called it “a huge step forward for some of the most vulnerable workers in the country, giving them a collective voice in their working conditions.”

The bill grew out of a union movement to boost the minimum wage and Andrias said it would “work in conjunction with traditional union organizing to give more workers a voice in their working conditions.”

“We made history today,” said Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry, calling it “a watershed moment.”

“If we are successful here, workers in Florida, Texas, New York, even Idaho will be heartened and they can replicate our successes,” Democratic Assemblyman Alex Lee said at the workers’ rally.

It grew out of the decade-long Fight for $15 and a Union minimum wage movement and efforts by labor unions to organize fast food workers in California and nationwide.

Editor's Note: If Gov. Newsom signs it, it could open the flood gates for unionizing the entire fast food industry nationwide over the next few years as well as the immediate ripple effect on Starbucks, Apple stores, and Amazon. Depending how Gen Z and social media responds this could become a movement.

But to establish Local Fast Food Council's with the power to drive wage recommendations, report on working conditions, inspect stores, and issue citations like OSHA, this is a first and depending on how it works out, at the end of the day this will change the industry. And will also have an impact on Loss Prevention practices and potentially LP technology within the specific group of stores. apnews.com ca.gov