California fast food workers will be paid at least $20 per hour next year under a new law signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
When it takes effect on April 1, fast food workers in the state will have among the highest minimum wages in the country, according to data compiled by the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. The state's minimum wage for all other workers is at $15.50 per hour and is already among the highest in the nation.
Newsom's signature on Thursday reflects the power and influence of labor unions in the nation's most populous state, which have worked to organize fast food workers in an attempt to improve their wages and working conditions.
And then, when this predictably puts all the small time, local food joints out of business, the people that vote for these clowns will be complaining that big corporations control everything.
Can you guys even see 10 inches in front of your own nose?
Uh… no? It's right there at the bottom:
Small time, local food joints would not be required to raise wages above the current minimum. They'd actually be able to compete more.
What the heck are you smoking?
Smoking the usual “reactionary right-wing ignorance”
And they’re fucking addicted to it. Get your facts out of here.
Y’all got any more o’ that ignorance? I’m tired of knowing shit at this point.
Indeed - not saying I agree, but this is the main talking point from the fast food companies. It's not fair they have to pay more when (sometimes) slightly smaller businesses do not.
OK I fat fingered 20 instead of 60. That's even better for my argument. To get the good pay you have to work for a huge multinational. Who else has 60 locations in the US alone?
What are you smoking? You know there's a labor market right? And companies compete for workers? Imagine you run a taco shack and every one of your employees is waiting for the minute there's an opening across the street at taco bell, or the opening of the new burger king down the street. What do you do? High turnover and employee resentment or raise wages? If raising wages means going out of business you're stuck.
And then small minded people like you will be in a thread in 2 years quoting statistics showing how big corporations are putting smaller ones out of business and taking over all the industries, even going so far as to blame corrupt politicians and corporate capture, conveniently forgetting that you cheered on the very corporate capture legislation that led to it.
idk personally I think if you can't pay a living wage you don't have a business model, you have a loophole of exploitive policy. Like, you're saying all this and I'm hearing "but without slaves to pick my cotton I'll go out of business!" good
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This is the fast food lobby's main talking point. Personally, I don't disagree. Decide a living wage, make that the bare minimum for everyone. The talking point however is that "my poor wittle small business can't afford to pay people enough money to live please daddy let me continue the exploitation."
This is what I knew you meant and very good points by the way.
They all just showed their own absolute ignorance about how an economy actually functions by their responses.
I would rather see the franchisees go under for a more limited impact to the economy overall (more inflation).
Where did you get 20? And does your point about minimum locations make sense with also bringing up local joints who are explicitly exempt given said minimum?
Edit: I see, are you saying that small businesses won't be able to compete with this new wage minimum? Valid point there.
A business that can't pay its employees a living wage isn't a business
Hear, hear.
My bad, 60. That's even better. To get the good pay you have to work for a big corporation.
Yeah, the "exempt" ones will be in a situation where they'll have to raise pay above what they can afford, thus going out of business, or have high turnover and high employee resentment. The end result of all of this is of course more big multinational control over the fast food industry.
Yeah the obvious solution to stop big businesses is removing all regulations. Once everyone is all getting paid below minimum wage, wages will magically go up and they’ll be better off.
And then something will trickle down or something
I never said anything about removing all regulations.
Just, think about the downstream impact of what you're doing. This one's fucking econ 101 level obvious, there's a meme about shit this obvious involving a bicycle and a stick. There's got to be a better, more well thought out idea. Here's one off the top of my head: a 0.1% additional business tax for every location above 10 in the state that goes towards housing assistance for food service workers. That's a win win; either you get more business diversity in the state or you get all the workers at all the fast food businesses a pay bump.
If you think this isn't corporate capture and corrupt business politics you're nuts. There's a fucking exemption in the law for panera bread.
You're worried about regulatory capture but you think it's good sense to tie housing assistance to the employer?
Where did I say housing assistance was tied to an employer?
I don't wanna debate the subject or anything but I did want to point out that there ARE other factors that keep employees around besides wage especially at lower skill jobs where there is wide range of ages that could work there. If you're a good boss to work for in a small business, less money could be worth better work environment.
A lot of people are scared of change. And im sure there are plenty of people don't really try to achieve more on life than being content.
and also McDonald's has had competitive pay above minimum wage for a while now. Idk I just don't think this stuff will be such a pendulum swing as you anticipate because of these things so I wanted to share.
Well, my thoughts on that are 1) if you wouldn't move for 20 an hour because the environment's good, is $20 really a living wage? If you can stand $15 then that's gotta he enough to live, right? 2) if people won't achieve more than the minimum they need to get by, maybe that's something we should just let happen, and 3) if companies are raising pay to stay competitive without government action, doesn't that negate the argument used to institute stuff like this?
All of your arguments in this thread sound like someone who really has already made up their mind how they feel and you just say whatever feels right. Your last point alone is so silly, as if there hasn't been decades of history proving otherwise. Maybe try focusing on listening for a while instead of trying to be right.
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Um… literally all of it? All you have shared are opinions.
You're not only just stating your opinion but it's also your opinion of what the consequences might be. Shit that hasn't happened yet!! And you haven't even used any source or data or even a reference to a specific time in history where something like this happened that leads you to believe in the consequences you're insisting will happen, which would at least be something I could point to as true or not. So like, yeah man idk but you really do not be so stubborn about what you think might happen in the future.
I literally don't care if something is owned by a small or big business. The obsession of small businesses is absolutely stupid. I only care if prices are low and wages are high. If that means only "big businesses" can provide that because of economies of scale, than good for them, companies should be rewarded for doing that.
If "small businesses" want to compete they should provide equity, there's literally nothing stopping that from happening.
There's a local barber shop that I go to and in my province the min wage was increased 50% while the prices have climbed 80% since I started going to them. But guess what, there still the best price/service wise so I go to them. The chains cost more than double plus taxes. And a lot of the local neighboirhood goes to them.
The only business that complain about labour laws especially laws like this that put heavier burden on larger companies are poorly run companies.
I see good business treating people good so when things like this comes up it shows me that business people will always push against progress.
So you're in favor of monopolization?
If it's better for customers and workers what's the problem (from a capitalist perspective)?
Do you want to punish success?
If small businesses become successful and grow do you want to purposefully stop them?
I always ask what is the difference between a small and big business and nobody gives a good answer.
Small business is always used as a shield to attack workers.
Genuinely, if they don't offer a innovative product, what's the point of "small business"? What's the point of a "small business" barber/retail store/grocer/etc. besides better prices?
When does a "small business" become a "big business"? And should we stop that from happening?
It seems to me that "small business" is just entitled people. If those same people became a "big business" they would want to crush their competition (i.e. "small business") look at Bill Gates/Steve Jobs against IBM.
The only thing that "small business" people want is for them to be the owner of a "big business". That's it.
If you actually care about distribution of ownership and wealth. You'd advocate for co-operatives, ESOPs and distributed ownership structures. Otherwise I don't care.
The issue is that this inevitably leads to monopolization. When a large business is able to keep competitors out of the market, they eventually are able to raise prices without any competition which is drastically worse for consumers. There are many reasons why monopolies have historically been broken by the government and why the government should continue doing so. It's not for anyone's best interest other than the shareholders.
How did the big business become a big business?
I have literally seen a small business expand beyond my city and become regional over a couple decades. And probably will try to be national chains.
From a capitalist perspective. What's bad about monopolization? For big businesses to be big business they need to have success. Why do you want to break success? Why do you want to pick winners and losers?
I don't believe in any of that. I prefer distributed ownership and benefits.
If the consumers own their own stores through a consumer cooperative than they can set the prices for themselves. And hence don't need "competition". And since the shareholders would be the members (i.e. the consumers), in a consumer cooperative, then that means they'll benefit. No need to have any billionaire tyrant either local nor from a big box store.
From a capitalist perspective, there's nothing wrong with monopolization. The issue is with the capitalist perspective, itself.
That's good. I thought I was debating some free market psycho. I think we agree on this.