McDonald’s owners slam California lawmakers in election ads after fast food minimum wage fight

McDonald’s franchise owners are not happy about recent California laws creating a fast food council to improve working conditions and setting a $20-per-hour minimum wage.

Now, they are taking out their frustrations on state lawmakers who supported the bills and are running in primaries for local offices, even though they would have little influence over labor policy in their new positions.

The California Alliance of Family Owned Businesses PAC had spent more than half a million dollars on ad campaigns opposing at least two Democratic Assembly members in their city- and county-level elections as of Friday, according to campaign finance filings from Los Angeles County and Sacramento.

The group had spent more than $297,000 on negative mailers targeting the author of the bills, Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, who is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It had also paid more than $300,000 for a campaign against Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who is running for mayor and voted in favor of the measures.

The California Alliance’s major funder is the California Operators Political Action Committee, which is backed by McDonald’s franchise owners, according to state campaign finance filings. Most contributors are California owners, although a handful are from other states.

Franchise owners feel the need to become more engaged in politics to protect their business model, said Kerri Harper-Howie, a Los Angeles McDonald’s owner operator and California Alliance board member.

“Politicians should know that if they agree to carry water for those who threaten our businesses, they will be opposed,” Harper-Howie said in a statement. “We are proud to be good employers and provide services to every community in California. We will protect our right and ability to do so.”

Although franchise owners are funding the ads, Service Employees International Union — which fought for the fast food bills — called them “shameful corporate attacks.”

“Corporate attacks on pro-worker champions will actually help the candidates who are attacked,” said Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU Local 2015. “Voters are ready to stand against multi-billion dollar corporations that are gouging our pocketbooks and paychecks.”

Franchise owner frustrations

Franchise owners are going after lawmakers following two years of legislation seeking to increase pay for fast food workers and empower them to fight alleged workplace abuse, including wage theft, harassment and other mistreatment.

Holden’s 2022 effort, Assembly Bill 257, created a fast food council made up of employees, employers and government officials to create regulations around workplace conditions. In response, companies organized a ballot measure to get rid of the council for voters to consider in 2024.

The assemblyman in 2023 authored Assembly Bill 1228, which would have held fast food companies and franchisees jointly liable for workplace abuses. Companies spent millions lobbying against the bill, and they later negotiated a deal with Holden and labor leaders that took joint liability off the table.

In exchange, the companies agreed to drop the ballot measure, allowed the council to move forward and agreed to a $20-per-hour minimum wage.

But franchise owners were dissatisfied with the compromise, leading the National Owners Association to create the California Alliance, Restaurant Business reported in September.

McCarty was a co-author on AB 257 and voted in favor of AB 1228. But the Sacramento mayoral primary is a good contest for the California Alliance to jump into because it’s competitive, with multiple candidates and is likely to have lower turnout, said Kelly Calkin, a political consultant for I Street Public Affairs. That means the group could potentially affect the outcome of the race, he said, something they likely determined through polling and data collection.

“The reason you come in from a political consultant standpoint is that someone’s vulnerable,” Calkin said.

And if the ads are about getting lawmakers’ attention — rather than opposing a candidate based on their actual potential to enact policy — the state capital is a good setting for that.

“It clearly has the benefit of showing legislators in Sacramento,” Calkin said. “Sending a clear message.”

The mailers the California Alliance has funded say nothing about the fast food bills. They paint McCarty and Holden as politicians who have accepted money and trips from special interest groups.

The mailers say “Kevin McCarty is the wrong choice for mayor” and Holden is “Too beholden to special interests.”

“Big business groups who are attacking Kevin McCarty for standing up for minimum wage for fast food workers is what this is all about,” said Andrew Acosta, McCarty’s campaign consultant.

Holden said the the independent expenditure campaigns are “out of my control,” and he believed all the parties involved in the fast food bills reached a “compromise they could live with.”

“All I can do in the Legislature is to advocate for the things I believe in,” Holden said when asked whether the ads would have a chilling effect on future legislation. “And I’ve advocated for things I believe in. And I didn’t always get what I needed out of the body or the governor’s signature. That’s just the way it cuts. It cuts both ways.”