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.
*In 2012 dollars, that is.
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.