A smarter approach would be to increase funding for agencies to enforce the state’s already strong labor laws. This could improve oversight and bolster workers’ rights without inflicting financial and regulatory burdens on small businesses.

A statewide minimum wage for a subset of workers would arbitrarily fragment California’s labor market, raise prices for consumers, and depress investment across the industry. The incentive to hire would fall and the return to automation would rise.

Restaurants will almost certainly be forced to raise prices to the extent they can to cover higher labor costs. But most fast-food customers aren’t wealthy, so some restaurants may reduce worker hours or lay off employees.

Once again, the California Legislature is forcing businesses to think twice before continuing to serve consumers in the Golden State. . . . Assembly Bill 257 (aka the “FAST Act”), would completely revamp the state’s labor rules surrounding the counter-serve “fast food” restaurant industry. Most alarmingly, the bill empowers an unelected, [11]-member fast food sector council to set labor standards industry-wide.

Ron Ross, the owner of four Wendy’s restaurants in the Los Angeles area, called the bill “a solution in search of a problem.”
“There’s just not enough of a problem that we need this type of aggressive bill that would dramatically change how we do business,” said Ross, who has been a franchise owner for 30 years.

The center’s analysis says AB 257 would effectively create a new food tax at a time when inflation is reaching record highs and could boost fast-food prices by as much as 20%.