Fast-food restaurant owners are breathing easy now that a state law meant to address working conditions among workers is on hold.
Efforts to halt AB 257, also known as the FAST Recovery Act, succeeded this month after restaurant and business trade groups submitted more than 712,000 valid voter signatures for a referendum, state officials announced last week. The effort to overturn the law needed more than 623,000 signatures to qualify as a measure on the ballot. It’ll be up to California voters to keep or repeal the law in 2024.
AB 257, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, was designed to increase wages and improve working conditions for fast-food workers. The first-in-the-nation law creates a 10-member council to set standards for wages, hours and conditions in the fast-food industry. The law, which was set to go in effect Jan. 1, allows the council to raise the minimum hourly wage for fast-food workers as high as $22.
“This is good news for businesses,” John Haile, owner and manager of a Burger King in San Jose, told San José Spotlight. “I was very happy to find out. Now voters will get to decide.”
Save Local Restaurants, a coalition that includes major franchise groups, filed a lawsuit last December to halt AB 257’s implementation while the state was verifying signatures for the referendum. A Sacramento County Superior Court judge granted the coalition’s request, effectively pausing AB 257.
Proponents of the law, including fast-food workers and labor...
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