California governor Gavin Newsom signed a law on Thursday that will raise fast food workers' pay in the state to $20 an hour starting in April 2024.

Why it matters: The law's passage is a huge win for labor — the campaign around this law was led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — and signals unions' growing power in the U.S.

• $20 an hour is a big raise for a lot of workers. Fast food workers in the state made an average of $16.60 an hour in 2022. The state's minimum wage is $15.50.
• Meanwhile, in another win for workers on Thursday, Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub were blocked in their attempt to keep an $18 minimum wage for NYC delivery workers from moving forward.

Key point: The new law also establishes a fast food council composed of representatives from labor and the industry that has the power to craft rules about working conditions — and is viewed as a step toward European-style sectoral bargaining.

The backstory: This is a new version of a fiercely contested law, AB 257, that Newsom signed last year. The original law would have gradually raised pay to $22 an hour, starting last January.

• An opposition campaign, spearheaded by the fast food industry, succeeded in putting the law on hold, and set in motion a statewide referendum to reverse it.
• But workers, backed by SEIU, succeeded in getting the industry to the negotiating table to hammer out a compromise. The two sides hadn't taken that kind of step before. (Read more about the strategy in the LA...

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