A trend-setting new California law, the Fast Food Accountability and Standards (FAST) Recovery Act, aimed to boost fast-food worker wages to an unprecedented $22 per hour. Unsurprisingly, the SEIU vows to keep fighting efforts from restaurant groups, which are gathering signatures for a 2024 ballot proposition to overturn FAST.
Yet across the country, similar efforts to raise minimum wage are actually seeing some opposition from workers themselves. In Michigan, waitresses expressed fears that they would actually lose money if a proposed law goes into effect. These workers’ logic makes sense: boosting minimum wage from $3.74 to $12 per hour translates into more expensive food and drink for customers.
Undoubtedly, those customers will tip less, leading to a dent in pay for those who insist that they can make more money per hour than a mandated minimum wage would allow.
The SEIU still isn’t satisfied, however. Fight For $15 appears to no longer be enough with the union now nudging Chicago politicians to support a local $25 minimum wage.
