The state Senate in California has just passed a landmark bill that aims to
give fast food workers in the state more of a say over their working conditions and
how much they get paid for the work they do.
Now the final version of the legislation was unfortunately watered down a little
bit as a result of corporate lobbying will get to those details in just a moment.
You don't want to miss them.
But here are some of the concerns.
Here is what the legislation will do.
The number one concern is we need the governor of California Gavin Newsom to
sign it into law and
unfortunately there is reason to believe that he might veto it.
Here's why Newsom has not said whether he will sign the bill but
his Department of Finance argued against the legislation in a recent
analysis claiming it quote could lead to a fragmented regulatory and
legal environment for employers and raise long term costs across industries.
Now that last part is probably correct because if you are forced
to negotiate Wages with your workers likely you're gonna have
to pay your workers a little more.
So it would increase costs.
But when you look at the profits that are made by fast food companies,
they're gonna be I they'll be fine.
Okay.
Now what will this do?
According to Mary Kay Henry, who is the international president of the SCIU.
She says it will give 550,000 fast food workers a chance to sit down with
government and their employers to decide wages and working conditions.
I cannot overstate how significant this is.
It sets the standard for what states and
cities around the country should be doing to support workers.
So the idea here is instead of having workers for
let's say one fast food franchise negotiate unionize on their own.
They're trying to increase the leverage of collective bargaining by getting
all fast food workers a seat at the table is like one major unit.
Okay, so under US law as josh Edelson, a labor reporter at Bloomberg
says most workers have the right on paper to unionize and
collectively bargain with their boss if a majority of their co workers are on board.
But in practice workers and industries like fast food have found it very
difficult and unionization has been plummeting for decades.
He continues to say in fast food SCIU is advocating state level sectoral
bargaining as an alternate form of collective bargaining but
also as a step toward winning unionization.
Federal labor law changes and
those long sought nationwide agreements with the top chains.
Now before I get into how corporate lobbying watered it down just
a little bit.
I want to go to you junk because this is overall really really good news.
And despite corporate lobbying, watering it down a little bit,
the fact that this is passed.
The state legislature is a big deal.
The question is will Gavin Newsom sign it.
>> So what's frustrating is that republicans get their politicians to
do almost anything right.
Stop teaching actual history,
pretend there was no racism in the country republican policies.
So yeah, great love it.
Let's pass laws right away pretend that transgender kids in high school sports is
the biggest issue in America republican policies right away passed the law
signing into effect oppressed people etcetera for democrats.
Why do we have to beg Gavin Newsom to do something That's obvious.
What are you for the working class aren't you?
Why is this hard?
Why is this complicated with Gavin Newsom?
Everything is hard.
You have to beg him plead him and then by the way you can't be too tough as
you're asking him to do the bare minimum because then he'll be offended and
then the media will get offended on his behalf.
And the media will write stories about how progressives offended Gavin Newsom and
that's why he punished all the workers in California.
Why is this hard Gavin all the unions are in favor of it.
It is overwhelmingly popular in California.
Why is this hard?
By the way it's the same exact thing Gavin Newsom did with the living wage act we
just did a petition on it.
Three different US Congressman Sinai which is extraordinary,
let alone unions and other parts of the Democratic Party in California the $18
minimum wage ballot issue was supposed to go on the ballot this year.
It's definitely going on in 2024 just ask avenues for something simple,
put it on the ballot this time around so they can get the raise right away,
it's gonna pass easily.
It's overwhelmingly popular, higher wages.
Of course it's popular, right?
And I was like, no, no, I don't want them having higher wages and
everybody begs, please Gavin, please, can you give higher?
Wait, no, no.
So elect democrats so that you could plead with them to do the bare minimum and
then have them give you crumbs and then have the media declared historic.
>> Now, the reason why that there's that difference between democrats and
republicans because they're funded by similar corporate interests, right?
I mean, you have Gavin Newsom hanging out at the french laundry in the middle of
the pandemic after he essentially implements some pretty strict covid
restrictions.
He's there to fundraise with his corporate donors.
And so the reason why it's easy for republican voters to get republican
politicians to carry out what they claim they want to carry out is because
all you hear from republican politicians is culture, war garbage.
That's it.
And it's easy to deliver that.
Because all all it takes is just being hateful toward powerless groups of
people who don't have the money to buy you in elections, right?
So with democrats, they're in a tough spot because they like
campaigning on issues related to equity, they like campaigning
on issues that would, certainly appeal to any economic populist,
but once they're elected, they remember, Yeah.
But I'm funded by those corporate donors.
So when push comes to shove, I'm not really gonna do anything.
And that's the issue here.
So let's talk about the corporate donors real quick because I think it's
important to understand how their lobbying efforts did lead to some provisions in
this final legislation that are certainly watered down.
So, for instance, the California chamber of com complained that the bill's
definition of fast food restaurant is so broad, it will encapsulate far more
than what we think of as traditional fast food establishments and is vague and
differentiating between two go service, counter service and
traditional sit down restaurants, to which I say sounds great.
Sounds like they're casting a wide net.
I'm here for it.
But what's not a great thing is that the Chamber of Commerce of course,
represents businesses who do fund politicians.
Yes, even in California on a state level.
And so the watering down of the bill looks like this.
They removed a joint liability clause that would have made
the franchisors responsible for labor law violations.
Okay, so there's the franchisee.
So think of Mcdonald's, for instance, that's the franchisee and
then there's the franchisor.
And that's the individual who decides to, you know,
buy one of the Mcdonald's stores and, you know, turn that into their,
their business right, According to the way the bill was written,
the franchisor is now will not be held liable the way of franchisee would okay
also reductions in the size of the governing council.
It would implement this governing council to kind of oversee this whole program and
the negotiations,
they were initially supposed to have 13 people as part of this governing council.
But it's been watered down to 10 with four of the individuals representing
the franchisor and four of the individuals representing the fast food workers.
And then the bill sunsets in six years.
So the lawmakers can revisit it to see if it's working.
So those are the water down components of it.
>> Yeah, so the sunset provisions among all the bad provisions I think
is the worst one because in six years we're gonna have to have this battle all
over again by the way.
Do you want to know why they put the sunset provisions and
they may never put it in when it is a right wing law.
All my most never as it ever put in it was put in once on tax cuts that were so
gigantic by George W Bush that he couldn't make them permanent.
Of course the overwhelming majority of these tax cuts went to the rich.
But don't worry when Obama and biden got in charge,
biden negotiated with McConnell and made 94% of them permanent.
Okay, so the reason in this case that is sunsets is that six years from now.
Both republicans and democrats, but mainly democrats in California can go and
get more bribes from the Chamber of Commerce.
And so okay, we might help the workers another time.
So you better give us money, give us money, give us money, give us money.
Okay.
And so and next time they'll probably kill it and
that's how the scam goes because we run our politics based on bribery.
So yeah, look it's but I'm shocked that a democratic legislature has
done anything positive and that's great credit where credit is due.
Good job California legislature.
Now of course, if they're playing hot potato in the agreed ahead of time with
Gavin Newsom will kill a portion of it Gavin and you kill a portion of it and
then we'll just diffuse blame.
And then even though we control California 100% supermajority,
we'll pretend there was nothing we could do right.
But in this particular case, good job California legislators and and
all the democrats there.
But Gavin Newsom still collecting bribes from the Chamber of Commerce
while he makes his decision