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McDonald’s has called out a California bill that could transform regulation of the fast-food industry, including its wages, describing it as “lopsided, hypocritical and ill-considered” legislation that “hurts everyone”.
The state’s measure should “raise alarm bells across the country” because it would impose higher costs on “one type of restaurant, while sparing another”, McDonald’s US president Joe Erlinger said in a letter posted on the company’s website on Wednesday.
California’s state senate passed Assembly Bill 257, also known as the FAST Act, on Monday but it will ultimately need governor Gavin Newsom’s approval. If signed, the bill would create a council that would focus on working conditions and set wages in the fast-food industry, creating an opening for sectoral bargaining.
A provision in the bill calls for the minimum wage from January 1 2023 to be capped at $22 an hour. California’s minimum wage is set to rise to $15.50 an hour at the start of 2023.
Erlinger wrote that he supported raising minimum wages for workers and that McDonald’s operated in “high wage environments”, but questioned “if it’s essential to increase restaurant workers’ wages and protect their welfare — and it is — shouldn’t all restaurant workers benefit?” He pointed to exclusions of chains with fewer than 100 locations and restaurants operating bakeries.
The McDonald’s executive argued that the bill would raise the cost of eating at fast-food restaurants in California at a time when Americans are already dealing with higher costs amid rising inflation.
Business and restaurant groups have opposed the bill and asked Newsom to veto it, while the Service Employees International Union has supported it. Newsom has not stated his position on the bill, but his Department of Finance has opposed it.
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Image and article originally from www.ft.com. Read the original article here.