California Voters to Decide on Regulating Fast-Food Industry

Pre-empting a law signed last year, business groups forced a ballot initiative on state oversight of wages and working conditions.

LOS ANGELES A Californialaw creating a council with broad authority to set wagesand improve the working conditions offast-food employees has beenhalted after restaurant and trade groups submitted enough signatures to place the issue before voters next year.

Officials from the California secretary of states office announced late Tuesday thatSave Local Restaurants, a broad coalition of small-business owners, large corporations, restaurateurs and franchisees, had turned in enough valid signatures to stop the law from taking effect.

The group, which has raised millions of dollars to oppose the law, had to submitroughly 623,000 valid voter signatures by an early December deadline to place a question on the 2024 ballot asking California voters if the law should take effect.

Legislation signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, would set up a 10-member council of union representatives, employers and workers to oversee the fast-food industrys labor practices in the state.