WorkforceThe industry's Hail Mary is using the 2024 ballot to enlist voters in the cause. Meanwhile, nine states are emerging as future battlegrounds.
The chances of scrapping a controversial new process for setting the wages and working conditions of California’s fast-food industry will depend on how readily quick-service employers can enlist the public in the cause, according to two longtime veterans of the political scene.
In a new edition of their Working Lunch podcast, Align Public Strategies principals Joe Kefauver and Franklin Coley explain that representatives of California’s quick-service business will need to collect the signatures of at least 600,000 residents just to clear the first hurdle. And they need to do it by Dec. 4.
A coalition representing quick-service brands operating in the state intend to gather a statement of opposition from 1 million citizens to play it safe, at a likely cost exceeding $10 million, Kefauver noted.
If the Save Local Restaurants coalition is successful, a referendum on the recently passed Fast Act would be put on the 2024 ballot. Under one of the quirks in California law, the Fast Act would not take effect until then.
“Even if it’s a two-year delaying tactic, a lot of people will save a lot of money,” Kefauver said during the podcast.
The Fast Act specifies that the wage-setting council it requires to be formed could raise the minimum wage for employees of big fast-food brands in the state to $22 an hour, a 50% increase, in 2023....
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