California State Assembly. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
California’s $20 Minimum Wage Fast Food Bill Gets Even Messier
‘It’s so flawed, you are exempting people and additional industries from the bill’
By Katy Grimes, March 18, 2024 6:39 pm
The fast food bill, California’s new $20 minimum wage law has a “cleanup” bill, Assembly Bill 610, which is supposed to… well… clean up the mess made by Assembly Bill 1228. At least that is what we are supposed to think. But AB 610 opened a new can of worms Monday, adding many new exemptions, and it has some Capitol watchers scratching their heads on the Republican votes.
In late February, the Globe reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom facilitated the exemption for a longtime friend from high school, donor and the billionaire who owns Panera Bread, from California’s new $20 minimum wage law. The exemption was written to the Panera Bread business model: A business operating a bakery and selling bread as a standalone menu item since September 2023, was exempted from AB 1228. Greg Flynn owns more than two dozen Panera Bread locations in California. And in addition of being a high school chum, Flynn contributed at least $164,800 to Newsom’s political campaigns, we learned.
The Globe and other news outlets received a cheeky email from Newsom’s Deputy Communications Director Alex Stack insisting that all of the media which reported on the preferential treatment of a Newsom donor and old friend was “absurd,” and that “it appears Panera is not exempt from the law.”
It was not a good look for the Governor, who sees himself sitting behind the Resolute Desk one day.
With all of the backtracking and denials, the situation actually looks worse today. While the real scandal is that Gov. Newsom was only too happy to grant a special exemption in a terrible bill for a friend, the governor was perfectly okay with forcing all other fast food businesses in California to pay the exorbitant $20 minimum wage, and bow at the altar of Newsom’s new Fast Food Council.
Making a bad situation and legislation worse, the “cleanup” bill to AB 1228, Assembly Bill 610 by Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Los Angeles), was debated on the Assembly floor Monday over numerous additional business exemptions to the fast food $20 minimum wage and new fast Food Council – as if that will make Panera Bread’s exemption a little less sleazy.
Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) spoke strongly in opposition to the bad policy, and said as the cost of living continues to rise, this bill will make it much worse, and lead to even more job losses.
“It’s so flawed, you are exempting people and additional industries from the bill,” Gallagher said. He asked if the bill is so great, then why are so many exemptions needed?
He also lambasted the gut-and-amended bill, as well as the behind-closed-doors-process it took to pass AB 1228, as well as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s heavy hand on it. Democrat floor leadership shut him down on that line of reply.
Leader Gallagher asked why the bill needed a “clean up,” which often happens after a bad piece of legislation is hastily passed and signed into law – the supposed unintended consequences get rectified and “cleaned up” in new legislation.
So what does AB 610 now propose to exempt?
The bill language says: “This bill would exempt additional restaurants from the definition of “fast food restaurant,” including such restaurants in airports, hotels, event centers, theme parks, museums, and certain other locations.”
What are these locations? Assembly Floor Analysis says:
A “fast food restaurant” shall not include a restaurant that is any of the following:
a) Located in an airport, as defined, but excluding any military base or federally operated facility.
b) Connected to or operated in conjunction with a hotel, as specified.
c) Connected to or operated in conjunction with an event center. “Event center” means a publicly or privately owned structure of more than 20,000 square feet or 1,000 seats that is used for the purposes of public performances, sporting events, business meetings, or similar events, and includes concert halls, stadiums, sports arenas, racetracks, coliseums, and convention centers. “Event center” also includes any contracted, leased, or sublet premises connected to or operated in conjunction with the event center’s purpose.
d) Connected to or operated in conjunction with a theme park, as specified.
e) Connected to or operated in conjunction with a public or private museum, as defined.
f) Connected to or operated in conjunction with a gambling establishment, as defined.
g) for-profit corporation and its affiliates. ii) Primarily or exclusively serves employees of that corporation or its affiliates.
h) Located on land owned by the state, a city or county, or other political subdivision of the state, that is part of a port district or land managed by a port authority or port commission, a public beach, public pier, state park, municipal or regional park, or historic district, and is operated pursuant to a concession agreement or food service contract.
Think about this – AB 610 will exempt fast food restaurants in airports, hotels, event centers, theme parks, museums, gambling establishments, corporate campus cafeterias, and Publicly owned lands including ports, piers, beaches and parks concessions – not just from the $20 an hour minimum wage starting April 2024, but also from regulation by Gov. Newsom’s creepy new Fast Food Council, which the Globe has reported on as government expansion and control.
So if you own a Taco Bell on Broadway, you don’t get the exemption. But if you own a Taco Bell at the Sacramento International Airport, you’re good to go.
Even more interesting following the debate and indefensible “exemptions,” was the vote.
A number of Republicans abstained from voting.
But Republican Minority Floor Leader Assemblyman Heath Flora (R-Ripon) voted “Yes” to pass the bill, while Republican Leader Gallagher voted “No” on AB 610. Since when does a Republican floor leader – the number 2 guy – vote against the number 1 guy? And for that matter, why did so many Republicans stay off the vote? It was pretty clear after Leader Gallagher’s floor speech that he would vote “No.”
Perhaps it wasn’t that clear coming from the number 2 guy.
RELATED ARTICLES
-
-
September 28, 2023
-
February 20, 2024
If AB 1228 is so great, why would we need all these exemptions? So the Democrats are telling us that if you are fast food worker at an airport, you don’t deserve what they call a “living wage”?
Just another example of anything the Democrats touch turns to sh*t.
Apparently the Dems believe a whole lot of people don’t deserve a living wage. Why does Newsome hate these people so much? Hmm?
What’s with the Republican abstentions? Taking note of names. Ridiculous, completely unacceptable.
AB 1228 is a mess for sure, much more damaging beyond fast-food than most people apparently understand, but now I’m tediously repeating myself. AB 610 only makes a bigger mess. As Katy Grimes well noted.
Given how awful this bill was to begin with and given all the skullduggery (NDAs during negotiations? What?) that has been discovered as occurring before, during, and after proposing this bill (now law), and given that Newsom’s dirty name has only gotten dirtier and dirtier from it (Paneragate), you would think the Dems might consider deep-sixing the whole thing, if only to duck the shrapnel when the trouble-to-come kicks in with a vengeance. You know, because it’s an unholy mess from beginning to end? And they wouldn’t want to be associated with it, right? But even most of the Repubs have gone AWOL. Come ON.
Obviously the “exemptions” are an acknowledgment that businesses (their precious govt-connected and bend over for the casinos businesses, anyway) are being HURT by AB 1228, the $20 min wage, the totalitarian Fast-Food Council, and all the rest of it. DUH! They KNOW they are hurting business; they’re admitting it by “crafting” exemptions with this ridiculous AB 610.
Also there’s Katy Grimes’ observation that legislators (and the Gov), apparently think adding more and more exemptions makes Gavin’s Paneragate look “a little less sleazy.” YES
vote for trash thats what you get trash.
California legislators continue to prove they never took Econ 101 and know nothing about how business actually works. You can’t legislate a wage and not expect the businesses to have to make serious adjustments, most likely the loss of many jobs replaced with robots. This is a full on disaster.
Did y’all notice that the exemption doesn’t cover fast food outlets on military bases? Our military already makes poverty level wages and pays for a meal plan, but they won’t get any type of a break on this.
Yep I noticed that screw over the ones who keep us safe in our beds at night. It’s frickin criminal and every single one of them should be thrown in prison
come April 1 I will not buy anymore fast food. we need a state wide day or week of protesting this. won’t be easy. I’m laying on the fixed income retired. I can barely afford fast food now. groceries are even worse priced. Cali needs new management.
I’m sorry, but 20 dollars isn’t exorbitant. It may seem that way, but when you look at how much 20 dollars today would be worth in years past, it’s worth less and less the further back you go. It’s worth half as much as it did when I entered the work force in the 90s.
That being said, I have looked into some of these franchise owners who have been protesting this. One in particular is a woman who has the gall to say she can’t afford to pay her workers, but eats at high end restaurants that are 100+ a plate, gets a new car almost every year, goes on 4 vacations every year, attends various galas and expensive events, wears expensive designer brand clothing, etc. she wants to live like a billionaire while her employees are struggling to keep roofs over their heads.
You’re not a successful business owner of you’re living in luxury while you’re employees are going hungry. You’re a tyrant.
It’s really very simple. If a business is forced to increase its expenses, it has the following choices: (A) Keep prices the same and accept lower profits; (B) Raise prices and hope the resulting increased revenue will make up for the cost increase; (C) Replace workers with capital equipment (i.e. automation); (D) Shut down.
The use of more automation has already begun, as has increasing prices, but price increases have their limits, because they are quite visible to the customers.
Forced wage increases have been continually shown to reduce the number of jobs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that a majority of these clowns really don’t understand what they’re voting for. Do they take this stuff to there constituents No,they rely on their staff which is made up of a bunch of college students who can’t think objectively.