Fast food workers want more job protections. What will LA City Council do about it?

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to look into how it could expand rights on the job for fast food workers and establish a "Know Your Rights" training program for the industry.

In 2022, the council passed a law, the Fair Work Week Ordinance, that established protections for workers at large retail establishments. Those protections include advanced notice of scheduled hours; the ability to request preferred shifts; and priority for current employees to pick up additional hours before the employer brings on new workers.

The law does not apply to fast food workers. On Wednesday, however, the City Council voted to ask for a report on what it would take to expand the law to do so.

"This is an industry that is just rife with wage theft, issues of scheduling, people living in poverty," said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who introduced the proposal. "We have to address it. We have to do something."

How have fast food jobs changed recently?

Los Angeles has more than 2,500 large chain fast food restaurants, according to Soto-Martínez's motion. The council's vote comes a year after California implemented a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers across the state, and as those workers and their advocates continue to push for changes to their conditions.

A recent report from Rutgers and Northwestern University found that 1 in 4 L.A.-area fast food workers were paid less than minimum wage in 2024. A 2023 report from the research organization Economic Roundtable found that one in 17 unhoused people in California works in fast food.

At Wednesday's meeting, multiple fast food workers spoke during public comment in favor of expanding the Fair Work Week ordinance, including one worker who said she is homeless.

"I work my butt off to work for a multi-million [dollar] company… and they keep lying and saying they can't afford stuff," said Anneisha Williams, who works at a Jack in the Box in Hawthorne. "And it's just not fair for workers like me today that we have to keep begging and begging and pleading and pleading just for simple little things."

Franchise owners and fast food employers also showed up to the meeting to oppose efforts that could lead to the law's expansion.

"Hours will be slashed, entry-level jobs will be lost," said one business owner who said she ran two fast food locations in Northridge. "Fast food restaurants cannot afford any more costly mandates. We are still struggling with the aftermath of the $20 minimum wage."

What debate is there over cost and impact?

The request for a report from the Chief Legislative Analyst is just a step in a longer process that will require the council to weigh in again before any changes take place.

But City Council members clashed at the meeting over the potential effects expanding fast food worker rights would have on employers and the economy. Some of the arguments mirrored ongoing arguments between labor unions and the fast food industry about how raising the minimum wage for fast food workers has affected employment and restaurant prices.

The council narrowly rejected a proposed amendment from Councilmember Bob Blumenfield requesting a "detailed economic analysis" of the proposed recommendations, after Councilmember Soto-Martínez spoke out against it, saying the burden on city staff would delay action for months and that the city already has enough reports.

Blumenfield said he wanted to have "eyes wide open" about economic effects, "especially at a time when we are seeing a lot of closures of restaurants and businesses."

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez proposed a separate amendment that would have asked the city's legislative analyst to look into exempting fast food restaurants in food deserts and areas the where the city has tried to bolster economic development and healthy food offerings.

" We're creating an environment that is inhospitable to their existence," Rodriguez said of fast food businesses in those areas.

The council rejected that part of Rodriguez's amendment. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said that many fast food workers live in the neighborhoods where she was seeking exemptions.

" Food deserts are, in fact, at least partly caused because people who live in those neighborhoods work all day, every day, sometimes two, three jobs, and they barely make enough to get by," he said.

What happens now?

The City Council did request that the chief legislative analyst seek input from small businesses, and to clearly lay out which businesses would be included.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado argued that expanding protections to fast food workers would create more stability for workers and their employers in Los Angeles.

" It's about having better jobs, better protections, and better retention," Jurado said. "Do we want low-paying jobs where there's so much turnover that small businesses cannot survive because they are always chasing a new set of workers? No."