Raising the Bare Minimum
On Sept. 5, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 257, also referred to as the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (FAST Recovery Act). As specified by the act, the Fast Food Council, a group of qualified individuals who will regulate certain laws in fast food chains, will be created. This council will set industry-wide standards for wages, working hours and other working conditions related to the health and safety of fast food workers. In the council, there will be 10 members: four of them will be industry representatives, and another four will be reserved for worker advocates. The other two members will consist of one representative from the Department of Industrial Relations and another from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. An additional duty for council members is to hold public meetings at least once every six months and conduct a full review of fast food health, safety and employment standards every three years. From these meetings, the Fast Food Council will form recommendations which would be sent to the California Legislature and would automatically become effective as a new state regulation (California Legislative Information). Junior Aazaan Chhabra supports the creation of a Fast Food Council, but believes there should be different areas explored in the FAST Recovery Act as well.
“I definitely think it is a good idea to have a group of people who address the unhealthy factors of fast food chains,” Chhabra said. “[But] even though this could cause change in fast food places, there should be a broader [council] that includes all restaurants because the issues that the Fast Food Council addresses could be applied to other restaurants.”
The FAST Recovery Act also establishes several new clauses, the most prominent being an increase in minimum wage for workers under fast food chains with fewer than 100 restaurants. Currently, California has 556,000 fast food workers working in well-known fast food chains, earning minimum wage at $15 an hour. Under the FAST Recovery Act, the minimum wage of fast food workers will increase to $22 per hour by 2023. This act also addresses procedures for harassment and abuse of power within fast food chains; food employers are prohibited from discharging, discriminating or retaliating against employees who participate in the Local Fast Food Council, a smaller version of the broader Fast Food Council for cities with over 200,000 residents, or make a complaint to a person of authority (National Law Review). Junior Lia Osipyan supports the promptness and the benefits of the FAST Recovery Act.
“It is time that fast food workers get paid more since a minimum wage salary is unsustainable for paying for your own expenses,” Osipyan said. “There has been a well-known history of abuse in many fast food workplaces, so workers definitely deserve to be compensated for their contributions to where they work.”
A potential unintended effect of the FAST Recovery Act, however, is that fast food prices may increase as a result of minimum wage increasing. Since more money would be allotted toward minimum wage, fast food chains may be forced to either reduce employment or take a hit to their profits as less customers will be driven to purchase from the “cheap and convenient” option (Foundation for Economic Education). For this reason, there are opposing views about the usefulness of the FAST Recovery Act. For instance, the California Department of Finance opposes the legislation because of the cost it would have on the state, which is already struggling to keep up with the business of California’s bureaucracy (U.S. Chamber of Commerce). Junior Rylee Izumo supports the benefits of the FAST Recovery Act but feels wary of the potential effects of increasing wages.
“Workers deserve higher pay, but I also do not think fast food prices should increase,” Izumo said. “I say that because [fast food chains] are making a lot of profit off of their prices. If you looked up the cost it took to make a burger versus what they are sold at, the prices are probably vastly different. So the FAST Recovery Act does have its benefits, but it also causes other economical problems.”
