California's Fast Food Industry Submits Signatures To Challenge New Oversight Board

By Madison Hirneisen | The Center Square, The Center Square California

December 5, 2022

(The Center Square) – Fast food industry groups announced Monday they have submitted over 1 million signatures to repeal a California law creating a state council to set regulations for the fast-food industry, a move that spurred calls for reform to the state’s referendum process by union leaders.

Save Local Restaurants, a coalition of restaurateurs, franchisees and small business owners, are behind a referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 257, a measure signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September that would allow the creation of a Fast-Food Council to set minimum standards for working conditions, hours and wages. The law also specifies that the council could set a minimum wage of $22 an hour in 2023, and its regulations would apply to any fast-food chain with 100 or more locations nationwide.

To qualify the referendum for the 2024 ballot, the coalition needs 623,212 valid signatures. Counties have eight days to count signatures and report to the Secretary of State. If the minimum required number of signatures is collected, the Secretary of State then directs counties to begin a signature verification process.

If enough valid signatures are verified and the referendum qualifies for the ballot, it would block implementation of the law until voters either uphold or repeal it.

Proponents of the referendum effort claimed AB 257 would result in increased prices for consumers and impact business owners. "The coalition has raised over $20 million to overturn the law," according to Calmatters.

“The FAST Act would have an enormous impact on Californians, and clearly voters want a say in whether it should stand,” Save Local Restaurants said in a statement Monday. “The measure would establish an unelected council to control labor policy in the counter-service restaurant industry, cause food prices to increase by as much as 20% during a period of decades-high inflation, and harm thousands of small family-, minority-, and women-owned businesses across the state.”

"The Service Employees International union of California, who supported AB 257 as it wove through the Legislature, lodged a complaint against the fast-food industry in October, alleging that business trade groups and fast-food corporations supported a signature-gathering process that 'willfully' mislead voters," according to the Los Angeles Times. The SEIU alleged the fast-food industry hired signature gatherers who approached voters and asked them to sign a petition to raise the minimum wage for fast food workers, even though that is not what the referendum would do.

Union leaders condemned the fast-food industry’s effort to overturn the law on Monday, calling for changes to the state’s referendum process. Union members and other officials want to see reforms requiring a certain number of petition signatures to be collected by volunteer grassroots organizers, saying industries behind referendums are relying heavily on paid, out-of-state signature gatherers.

“This is yet another example of the abuse of referendums by massive corporations and other wealthy interests to use unlimited funds to overturn the will of the legislature, and it illustrates the clear need for reform of the referendum and initiative process,” Trent Lange, executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign, said Monday.

Lange added that “corporations and billionaires can buy their way onto the ballot” by hiring paid signature gatherers, which he says is the “exact opposite of what the referendum and initiative process was created for.” He recalled that in previous decades, petition circulators were “almost universally unpaid” and joined by “armies” of Californians who volunteered to collect signatures because they believed in the cause.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry called the referendum a “direct attempt to keep workers in poverty,” urging lawmakers to “take a serious look at the referendum process.”

“It is abhorrent that these corporations have already spent millions of dollars in an attempt to deliberately mislead California voters and stamp out the progress fast food workers have won rather than invest these resources into paying living wages and supporting their franchisees,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said during a press conference Monday. “These conglomerates are instead burning money to subvert our laws and attack our democratic process.”

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