A Council in Limbo: How California's Failure to Lead Betrays Its Fast Food Workers

The Facts: A Landmark Law Paralyzed by Inaction

In 2023, following intense political struggle, strikes, and a ballot measure fight, California enacted a landmark compromise. This deal established a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers and, just as critically, created the nation’s first Fast Food Council. This council was conceived as a revolutionary forum—a place where workers and employers, represented equally with four seats each, could come together under the guidance of an unaffiliated public chairperson. Its mandate was powerful: to set standards on wages, health, safety, and working conditions, and to have the authority to raise the minimum wage annually for hundreds of thousands of workers at large chains.

The law was clear in its operational requirements: the council must meet at least twice a year. For a brief moment, it functioned. It held its mandated meetings in 2024. Then, in early 2025, its chairperson, Nick Hardeman, resigned after an appointment to another state position by Governor Gavin Newsom. Since that resignation, the council has entered a state of suspended animation. It has not held a single full meeting in over a year. The governor’s office has not appointed a new chairperson, and the council’s staff, while still employed, can only “prepare for future meetings” that have no scheduled date.

The consequences of this paralysis are not abstract. As required by the law that created it, the council must submit a performance review to the legislature every three years—a deadline now looming without any recent meetings to inform it. More immediately, the workers the council was designed to empower are being left in the lurch. On April 16, 2025, workers organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) delivered a 96-page book to the governor’s office. It documented over 100 complaints filed with state and city agencies alleging wage theft and dangerous working conditions since the council’s formation. The book gives voice to workers like Luna Mondragon, a Carl’s Jr. cook who experiences job-related pain and retaliation, and Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s worker and council member who reports employers threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when safety or pay issues are raised.

The council’s business-side representative, Rich Reinis, a former franchise owner, expresses his own frustration with the stalemate. He awaits news of meetings and wants the council to study the economic impact of the wage increase and address crises like wildfires’ effects on workers. The author of the original law, former Assemblymember Chris Holden, calls the council “groundbreaking” and urges the governor to complete the task. Yet, from the governor’s office and the Labor & Workforce Development Agency, there is only silence on a timeline for action, confirming the vacancy but offering no path forward.

The Context: A Hard-Fought Compromise Being Undermined

To understand the gravity of this inaction, one must recall the bitter conflict that preceded this council. In 2022, the legislature passed a bill raising the fast-food minimum wage to $22 an hour. The industry rebelled, funding a signature drive to repeal the law. Workers across California went on strike. The state stood on the brink of a costly and divisive ballot measure war.

The 2023 compromise was a classic political solution: labor dropped its ballot fight in exchange for a slightly lower $20 minimum wage and the creation of this unique council. It was a deal meant to move from constant conflict to structured dialogue. The council was the institutional embodiment of that peace treaty—a space for ongoing negotiation and problem-solving, not just a one-time wage adjustment. Its current dysfunction doesn’t just stall policy; it risks unraveling the fragile trust that made the compromise possible.

Opinion: A Betrayal of Democratic Principles and Human Dignity

This is not a simple story of bureaucratic delay. It is a case study in the erosion of democratic accountability and a blatant violation of the social contract. When a government creates a law—especially one born from such public strife and celebrated as a national first—it assumes a solemn obligation to implement that law in good faith. By leaving the Fast Food Council leaderless and inert, the Newsom administration is failing in that most basic governmental duty: to execute the laws of the state.

Let us be unequivocal: This failure disproportionately harms the most vulnerable. The SEIU estimates that of California’s 630,000 fast-food workers, approximately 75% are people of color and 20% are immigrants. These are individuals performing essential labor, often for meager pay, in physically demanding jobs. The council was their designated vehicle to address systemic issues like safety hazards, wage theft, and the threat of immigration-based retaliation. To deny them that vehicle through endless delay is to actively perpetuate the inequities the council was meant to correct. It sends a message that their voices, their health, and their legal rights are not a priority.

The principle at stake here is the integrity of institutions. Democratic governance relies on functional institutions that operate as designed. A council that cannot meet because the executive will not appoint its leader is a broken institution. It becomes a symbol of promise without performance, of rights without remedies. This damages public faith not only in this specific council but in the government’s capacity and will to solve problems. When worker advocate Angelica Hernandez says, “The sky didn’t fall on the California fast food industry” after the wage increase, she highlights the success of the policy. But the paralyzed council tells a different story—one where political will evaporates after the headline-grabbing compromise is signed.

Furthermore, this inaction undermines the rule of law. The statute says the council “shall” meet. The governor has a duty to facilitate that. There is no ambiguity. The governor’s spokesperson referring inquiries to a state agency that confirms the problem but offers no solution is the definition of bureaucratic buck-passing. It is an affront to the workers like Julieta Garcia, a Pizza Hut cook, who implores the governor to “finish the job he started” and “leave a good legacy.” Her plea is not for a radical new policy; it is simply for the government to make functional the body it already created.

From a pro-democracy, pro-liberty, and humanist perspective, this situation is intolerable. Liberty is not merely freedom from interference; it is the possession of the rights and tools to shape one’s condition. The Fast Food Council was a tool for collective liberty, for giving a diffuse workforce a structured voice. To allow it to languish is to constrict that liberty. Our humanist principles demand we value the dignity and well-being of every worker. When Luna Mondragon says, “If we don’t have our health we can’t accomplish anything,” she articulates a fundamental human truth that policy must serve.

The governor’s office must act, and it must act immediately. Every day of delay is a day workers are denied their statutory right to representation and a day the state’s law is rendered a nullity. This goes beyond partisan politics; it is about foundational governance. The appointment of a qualified, impartial chairperson is a ministerial act that would reactivate a critical democratic institution. Failure to do so is a choice—a choice to disregard the legislature, to disrespect the delicate balance of the compromise, and, most damningly, to abandon the workers whose hopes were pinned on this groundbreaking council.

California positioned itself as a leader. Leadership now requires Governor Newsom to fulfill the basic obligations of his office, appoint a chair, and allow the Fast Food Council to finally get back to the work of building a more just industry. The legacy of his administration, and the faith of hundreds of thousands of workers, depends on it.