California’s FAST Recovery Act, AB 1228, is set to raise the fast-food minimum wage to $20 per hour on April 1. The SEIU pushed hard for the bill, although the union didn’t receive their entire wish list on how far the new fast-food council’s powers would extend. However, the fast food council will still be able to set wages for this industry, and four of the council seats are likely to be controlled by – get this – the California Fast Food Workers Union, which was announced late last week as a new invention of the SEIU.
This creation has the appearance of a first-of-its-kind union, but to be very clear, the SEIU has not succeeded in unionizing any fast-food workers in the traditional sense. Instead, this new entity is a so-called “minority union” that bypasses the election process. That topic arose in LRI INK a few years ago when minority unions began to multiply, and as an important distinction, these non-traditional unions do not have collective bargaining rights with companies, so the SEIU seems to be pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Is the new union “real”? Not really. Michael Saltsman, managing director of the Employment Policies Institute, did not mince words in an opinion column for the Orange County Register. In doing so, he labeled this tactic as “the SEIU’s fake fast-food union.” As Saltsman pointed out, “it has no self-sustaining funding source” and “no apparent power beyond collecting feedback from the union’s existing supporters.”
The SEIU’s objectives: The California Fast Food Workers Union plans to push for 3.5% annual minimum wage increases on top of the upcoming $20 minimum wage. They also want to establish guaranteed minimum work hours and scheduling flexibility by employers. Those workers who opt into the union will pay $20 per month in dues.
More odds and ends: By launching the minority union, SEIU is also tipping its hand and essentially admitting that it failed at organizing fast-food workers in California through customary means, even after lobbying for both Fight For $15 and AB 1228. Presumably, the California Fast Food Workers Union does aim to use council seats to attempt sectoral bargaining, which would make it more powerful than most minority unions. Yet we shall see what the extent of this power turns out to be.
And the end of an era: Interestingly enough, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry recently revealed that she will soon retire. She’s doing so while her union works to further unsettle an industry that is navigating how to afford higher wages for half a million workers on April 1. Then again, she’s also leaving after her union had to invent an illusory mini-union.
The cost of the SEIU’s latest tricks: As we previously detailed, AB 1228 has already burned workers – Pizza Hut laid off over 1,100 delivery drivers, and other chains are leaning into automation – as franchisees prepare for dramatically rising labor costs. Additionally, the SEIU’s new union might be “fake,” but they hope to collect very real dues, even if they are damaging the interests of workers whom they claim to want to represent.
