What did the California Board of Fast Food in its first year?

One year, in the remarkable efforts of California to regulate conditions for more than half a million fast food workers, the State Council appointed to monitor the industry has barely found out how to hold meetings.

The nine -member fast food Council, made up of business owners, workers and representatives of the Union, has recently decided to look at a $ 20 minimum cost of living at $ 20, which came into force last April. The next meeting has not yet been registered, she plans to discuss the increase in this requirement by 3.5% or last year’s inflation rate, which is lower.

But that won’t do much more than that. After two marathon meetings in January and February, in which a smaller group of council members listened to hours of comments from workers and their allies, and restaurant owners and their allies, the chairman of the Council, the Chairman of the Council Put a promotion on the next agenda for discussion only – no vote.

This is the closest that the Council has reached a political decision as it began to meet last March.

The chairman of the Food Council Nick Hardeman, a former employee of the State Senate, Gavin Newo, appointed a sole “public” member of the council related to either business or labor, said that the pace should be expected so far. He likened the work to start a new department from scratch and said that he and the council had spent last year by hiring three employees and hoping to establish rules soon on how to conduct future votes.

“The gathering of the basics so that we can focus on significant politics conversations, it took a long time,” Hardeman said. “It’s hard to make decisions. And there are many people who come from two completely different sets of life experiences when we talk about problems, and you see this game in every date. “

In 2021, the International Union of Office Employees proposed a European -style State Council through which fast food workers and business owners would bargain directly because of the salaries and working conditions on behalf of the whole industry. After the state dominated by democratic legislation and Newsom approved the law, fast food corporations spend millions to try to cancel it.

The Newsom compromise, signed in 2023, has imposed a minimum salary of $ 20 for fast food restaurants belonging to a chain of 60 or more seats across the country, and the State Council – to part evenly between business and labor, as a neutral chairman – who can approve additional increases, but a little more.

Council members from both sides said they wanted to find compromises to improve the industry, but the meetings – about half a dozen from last March – went in the same way: the discussion focuses most on what the Council should discuss.

A flood of workers throughout the country attended these meetings or called to raise fears about pay thefts, employers reduce the hours and costs of life.

Twenty dollars per hour, while more than 20% higher than the regular minimum wage of the country are still far from what the average single Californians without children should do the ends, According to a calculator created by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Workers and their council defenders have sought hearing workers to broadly air the allegations of abuse in the workplace.

Concomitant flood of franchise The advice of voting for future increases, warning of the closure of restaurants and detailed attempts at the ways they have shortened hours or staff to bear the cost of increasing the minimum wage. Some owners have emphasized their own humble origin, a nod to the road that the franchise restaurant industry gives the ownership of the business for people in color.

Conflict

Since wage increases last April, researchers issued competitive reports on its effects.

A recent report introduced in the business Berkeley Research Group said there were 10,000 smaller jobs in the California fast food between June 2023 and June 2024 – the last month available for this set of data. He also concluded that the law increased the menu prices by 14.5%.

But In another study Performed by Labour, UC Berkeley researchers said Berkley’s research group failed to report changes to other restaurants or control sectors for how seasonal changes in the industry play differently in California than the rest of the country. The UC Berkeley report found that a salary increase had little effect on fast food jobs and only 1.5% increase in menu prices.

More up-to-date Federal data It shows the growth of workplaces in the restaurants industry with limited service in California is mostly flat for about a year and a half.

Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at AMHERST and a minimum wage expert, said it was still too early to measure the effects of wage increase and warn of comparing work in California, without comparing it with such a slight delay throughout the country in the restaurant. In an email, he noted that “it is safe to say that a significant part (majority, but not all) from the increase in labor costs, has passed to prices.”

None of the studies capture whether the workers’ classes have remained the same.

A key ingredient is missing from fast food discussions: McDonald’s corporate representatives, Burger King and other fast food titans.

When legislators first examined the fast food advice, McDonald’s and other franchise companies poured millions of dollars into the campaign to beat a more expansive proposal.

Now they were largely absent from the Council meetings. Instead, their franchise owners – who pay rewards and fees for branding to manage restaurants independently and are responsible for salaries and employment – who speak at the Council meetings to be pleaded by a more pay increase.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum! Brands and other fast -food franchise chains did not answer questions of calm

Salaries and hours

The owners of restaurants and their council defenders called on their colleagues to focus elsewhere. The owner of the Krispy Kreme franchise and council member Rich Rainis suggested last week to discuss how to support workers affected by wild fires in Los Angeles, or employees who are afraid to show up to the background of increased implementation of immigration.

“We can talk about many reasons to postpone the conversation,” said Council member Maria Maldonado, director of the California Union of Fast Food Workers. “But workers are still waiting for us to talk about (the cost of living) and to make this advice useful.”

In January, the Council had scheduled a hearing with the leaders of state -owned labor agencies to discuss its role in filing complaints from fast food workers, but postponed it due to the fires at LA and still did not defer it.

Rich Tiuu, who owns two McDonald’s restaurants in Santa Clara County, welcomes the faster pace of the Council. He had owned his McDonald’s for about a year when the $ 20 increase came into force last April, he said, and he had passed from about 80 employees to less than 70, not filling in jobs when employees leave.

The members of the council “have not actually been fully organized where they actually have items on the agenda,” he said. “They are constantly talking about increasing labor (costs) and that’s all they have been talking about. I have the feeling that they actually have to look at other factors. “

Marina Orosko, a college student and a chipot worker in Sacramento, hopes the advice will approve an promotion to help her allow her rent and a recent increase in training. She said last year she worked about 30 hours a week at other fast food restaurants, and now she can only get about 20. And she wants a hearing of working conditions.

“Although this is a new process and it can take a while,” she said, “It feels really especially especially to sit down with our bosses and share our feelings and ideas.”