In a vote close enough to require 14 days for ratification, Californians have rejected a ballot proposal that would have raised the minimum wage for most workers in the state to $18 an hour.
No other state has a pay floor as high. But even without the increase, California will still sport one of the steepest rates in the country, at $16.50 an hour as of Jan. 1. Most fast-food restaurants in the state are required to pay their workers $20 an hour.
The proposal for an $18 wage was defeated by roughly 250,000 votes, a narrow margin for a state of California’s size. Nevertheless, it has been hailed as a decisive victory for the restaurant industry, which lobbied strenuously against the measure, known as Prop 32. Never before has a proposal for a wage hike been voted down by California voters.
Some lobbyists for the trade have attributed the “no” vote to a public backlash against the $20 minimum wage that went into effect for most of California’s fast-food workers on April 1. The pay floor was raised to that level under a deal negotiated by Gov. Gavin Newsom between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), fast-food franchisors and industry trade groups.
The parties learned that the governor was ready to give the state almost unbridled authority to set wages for fast-food workers going forward if labor and management could not agree on a pay-setting method that gave employees a voice in what they earn. The traditional adversaries hammered out an arrangement whereby wage hikes would be considered annually by the Fast Food Council, a group with equal representation of fast-food employers and workers.
The SEIU has indicated that it would like to duplicate that method of setting restaurant wages in jurisdictions throughout the country. It has openly called the situation in California a test of concept.
"Californians are sending Gavin Newsom and the SEIU a clear message: They're sick of being lab rats for their pet projects," Rebekah Paxton, research director of the employer-supported Employment Policies Institute, said in a statement. "Voters saw the devastating economic fallout of the $20 fast food minimum wage law, and for the first time in state history, voted against a statewide minimum wage hike."
Voting on Prop 32 had ended Election Day, or Nov. 5. But the vote wasn’t certified until this past Tuesday.
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