SEIU California files a complaint alleging a fast-food industry coalition violated election rules in its campaign to block a landmark labor law.
on Labor Day. The union sponsored the legislation, known as the Fast Recovery Act, to boost protections for fast-food workers.
Fast-food workers are walking off the job in support of a California bill that would establish a council to negotiate standards on wages, hours and other work conditions. Save Local Restaurants, the coalition pushing to overturn the law, said in a statement that it “has been vigilant in maintaining compliance with California’s election laws” and added that it finds the complaint “frivolous.”
The coalition said it has collected “nearly a million” signatures thus far: “We are on track to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures above what is legally required due to the voters’ overwhelming opposition to this misguided law.” The complaint notes that California’s election code makes it a crime for proponents of a referendum and those whom they hire to circulate a referendum petition to engage in any tactic that “intentionally misrepresents or intentionally makes any false statement concerning the contents, purport or effect of the petition.”
In one video The Times reviewed, Fight for $15 organizer Cherie Wallace asks a petition circulator who approached her, “So this is to get the minimum wage to $22?”