Good news for workers in California:
Fast-food companies agreed over the weekend to pull a California referendum off next year’s ballot that sought to reverse a landmark worker-protections law, forgoing a costly political fight with labor unions over employee pay.
The deal will result in an increase in the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour in April and form a new council of representatives for workers and companies to consider pay bumps in the future, according to sources involved in the negotiations.
Since I'm a bug about inflation, it's worth noting that the $15 minimum wage movement started in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to.......$20 in 2023.
In other words, it took a while but in California fast food workers finally have the minimum wage they were fighting for a decade ago.
OH. MY. GAWD!! Inflation Monster is coming to EET US IN OUR BEDZ!!11!
Is the logic here that fast food workers typically aren't tipped and so deserve a higher base wage? I believe the minimum wage for tipped workers in CA -- mostly waiters/waitresses at sit-down restaurants -- is still around $15. That's not changing, is it?
I wonder if we'll start seeing fast food franchises putting tip jars out on the counter, calling the employees tipped, and cutting their base wage back to $15?
Seems like the restaurants came out ahead of that one. They have to pay more, but managed to fend off a stealth SEIU bill to make them easier to unionize (the joint liability bill) as well as a committee that would have been dominated by the labor side of things setting pay and working conditions.
Getting close to my 1968 minimum wage of $1.60/hr. Adjusted for inflation the equivalent is $23 - $24 hour.
I was 15 at the time.
I wonder how many adults make $24 or less but are above the federal minimum wage. I bet it is not a small number.