One of the more absurd creations of Sacramento in recent years is California’s Fast Food Council. The council is empowered “to establish an hourly minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees and develop standards, rules, and regulations for the fast food industry,” as explained by the state’s Department of Industrial Relations.
First, a brief history. In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed what was called the FAST Recovery Act establishing the fast food council, allowed for a fast food minimum wage of as high as $22 to be set and made it easier to sue franchisors over labor violations.
After the fast food industry gathered signatures to potentially put the law up before voters, a deal was struck in 2023 and new legislation was signed giving fast food workers a $20 minimum wage and reestablishing the fast food council with some guidelines.
A few months later in early 2024 came Panera-gate, in which it appeared Panera Bread received a carveout from the fast food laws thanks to an unusual provision exempting any business that “operates a bakery that produces for sale on the establishment’s premises.” The speculation at the time was that the carveout had something to do with the ties between Panera franchisee Greg Flynn and Newsom. State officials later said the law would apply to Panera.
At that same time, it came out that the Service Employees International Union required all parties negotiating the fast food law to sign non-disclosure agreements. Legislation to ban the use of NDAs in legislative processes was introduced and rejected. The California Chamber of Commerce, oddly enough, stood up in defense of NDAs in the legislative process.
From all of this mess, Californians have just seen higher prices whenever they try to get something quick to eat.
The now-established Fast Food Council, meanwhile, is all set up with several members and not much to do besides planning to discuss an even higher minimum wage.
“At its yet-unscheduled next meeting, it plans to discuss raising that requirement by 3.5% or last year’s rate of inflation, whichever is lower,” reports CalMatters. “But it won’t do much more than that.”
The council has mostly been busy figuring out how to conduct itself. It now has a few hired staff members, for starters. “Council members on both sides have said they want to find compromises to improve the industry, but meetings — about half a dozen since last March — have gone much the same way: discussion mostly focused on what the council should discuss,” notes CalMatters.
We have a better idea: the Fast Food Council shouldn’t exist. You know who knows how to run a fast-food business? The people who own and run them.
There is no need for this entity to exist and there is no legitimate reason a Fast Food Council should be telling business owners how to do their job.
California has enough problems on its hands. This whole effort to appease the SEIU has just made things more expensive and more complicated.