California McDonald’s franchise owners target lawmakers over minimum wage hike
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LOS ANGELES – McDonald’s franchise owners in California are trying to exact revenge on lawmakers who backed the state’s minimum wage hike for fast food workers.
According to The Sacramento Bee, the California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses political action committee (PAC) has spent more than half a million dollars on ad campaigns targeting at least two Democratic Assembly members who are running for county and municipal seats.
Citing campaign finance filings, sacbee.com reports the PAC has spent $297,000 on negative mailers targeting Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) who is now seeking a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It also spent $300,000 on a campaign targeting Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who is running for mayor of Sacramento.
The minimum wage for fast food workers in California will climb to $20 an hour in April after lawmakers passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1228 last year.
Holden was the lead author of AB-1228.
Executives at McDonald’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill have already indicated that menu price hikes are coming, and two large Pizza Hut operators in California recently eliminated their in-house delivery drivers ahead of the new law.
“Politicians should know that if they agree to carry water for those who threaten our businesses, they will be opposed,” Kerri Harper-Howie, a Los Angeles McDonald’s owner-operator, said in a statement to the Bee.
The Service Employees International Union, which successfully lobbied for the wage hike, called the PAC’s spending “shameful corporate attacks.”
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