With This Fast-Food Bill, California Could Help All Essential Workers

With This Fast-Food Bill, California Could Help All Essential Workers

With This Fast-Food Bill, California Could Help All Essential Workers

Gavin Newsom may have a chance to prove his commitment to the working class.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Amid what looks like the largest labor organizing movement since the Great Depression, California lawmakers are considering legislation that would bolster protections for hundreds of thousands of the state’s frontline workers—and set a national standard for how our government advocates for the working class.

The Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, or the Fast Recovery Act, would create a state-appointed council of workers, employers and state agencies that would collaborate to improve working conditions, benefits and wages for California’s 550,000 fast-food workers. The measure passed the state Assembly earlier this year (by one vote!), and appears likely to clear the Senate and reach Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Led by the Service Employees International Union and Fight for $15 and a Union, more than 100 organizations and unions have endorsed the legislation. So have five cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. Earlier this month, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and seven of his colleagues in the California delegation in the US House urged Newsom to support the act.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Can we count on you?

In the coming election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights are on the ballot. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are scheming to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision across all levels of government if he should win.

We’ve already seen events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism—throughout it all, The Nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers have sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, unpacked the shallow right-wing populist appeals of J.D. Vance, and debated the pathway for a Democratic victory in November.

Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical juncture in our country’s history. Now more than ever, we need clear-eyed and deeply reported independent journalism to make sense of the headlines and sort fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and uplifting the voices of grassroots advocates.

Throughout 2024 and what is likely the defining election of our lifetimes, we need your support to continue publishing the insightful journalism you rely on.

Thank you,
The Editors of The Nation

Ad Policy
x