March 11, 2024
California’s fast food workers are getting a raise. But the labor-industry truce is fraying
Both sides billed the high-profile California fast food deal last year as a resolution to two years of escalating political tensions.
One of workers’ biggest wins in the Legislature during “hot labor summer,” the agreement in the session’s final week resulted in a minimum wage hike for employees and some guarantees for companies. In exchange, the industry agreed to stop fighting the issue at the ballot box and lawmakers backed off on even stricter regulations.
But a month before the new wage — $20 an hour for workers at fast food chains with 60 or more locations nationally — goes into effect, the temporary truce is unraveling.