LOS ANGELES – Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday, Sept. 28, signed long-sought legislation that gives fast-food workers a raise to $20 per hour while creating a statewide panel to develop baseline labor standards on wages, hours and workplace conditions.
Supporters say Assembly Bill 1228’s creation of a California Fast Food Council, coupled with a raise for an estimated half a million restaurant workers in the state beginning next year, marks among the most significant pieces of employment legislation in a generation in an era of rapidly rising cost-of-living increases and economic disparities.
But it was a law that once was on tenuous ground, coming until recently amid a fierce legal battle over the legislation, which critics said could have upended the business model for local restaurant franchises by ending local owners’ autonomy.
Instead, an 11th-hour deal between labor groups and fast-food companies put it on firmer ground.
Newsom, who visited Downtown L.A. on Thursday to sign the bill, said it was a key step forward in a state where California fast-food workers are paid $3 per hour less than comparable service-sector workers, and who are more likely to live in poverty, according to the bill’s supporters.
“We saw the abuse, we saw the inequities in terms of the wages and the treatment and we realized we had a responsibility to do more,” Newsom said. “The future happens here first. This is a state that prides itself not only being on the leading cutting edge, but we...
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