USA: Fast food workers launch new union in wake of pay boost victory
"California fast-food workers launch new union: ‘They have to listen to us’", February 9 2024
Hundreds of fast-food workers met in Los Angeles on Friday to kick off the launch of the California Fast Food Workers Union, a statewide union aimed at organizing cooks and cashiers at fast-food companies across the state.
The new union comes in the wake of a victory at the end of 2023 to boost pay for California’s more than 500,000-strong fast-food workforce to $20 an hour.
Fast-food workers with the Service Employees International Union’s Fight for $15 and a Union movement led a legislative effort to get a bill passed in California to raise minimum wages for workers in the fast-food industry and create a fast-food sector council with worker representation in September 2022.
The fast-food industry responded by blocking the measure from going into effect by gathering signatures for a 2024 ballot initiative to repeal the law. A settlement was reached between labor and industry groups in September 2023 to avoid what was anticipated to be a very expensive, hotly contested ballot measure in November 2024.
The settlement included raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers at chains with more than 60 locations to $20 an hour in California, which is set to go into effect on 1 April this year.
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In California, over 80% of fast-food workers are people of color and two-thirds are women. In recent years, workers at fast-food chains throughout the state have held strikes in response to poor workplace conditions including excessive heat exposure in the workplace, sexual harassment and retaliation against workers, child labor violations, and wage theft.
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