California’s higher minimum wage for fast food workers kicks in Monday. But which restaurants have to follow the law is still a moving target.

Just this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a carve-out for fast food places at airports, convention centers and hotels.

According to emails obtained by CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang in response to a public records request, a range of employers have been trying to figure out if they must pay $20 ever since the law was signed late last September. 

Jeanne reports that in October, the Department of Industrial Relations received two inquiries from franchise owners asking whether they must comply with the law. One employer owned Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon pretzel stores and believed they counted under a controversial bakery exemption; the other owned an ice cream parlor. 

By December, employers were lawyering up. Attorneys for the Honey Baked Ham chain asked whether it would qualify. Department attorney Ehud Appel said it did not respond to individual inquiries, instead answering to the companies by putting out an 18-item FAQ this month.

It’s unclear how the state will handle the confusion going forward. Its FAQ directs workers who believe they’re wrongly being denied $20 an hour to file a wage theft claim with the Labor Commissioner’s Office — a process that is so backlogged amid a staffing crisis for the office that complaints can take years to resolve. The department did not immediately respond Thursday when asked for further clarification.

This week, KCRA reported that the Handel’s ice cream store owner, Gabriela Campbell, has been trying for six months to find out whether she has to pay the higher wage and claims that a government official told her that she should reach out to the Service Employee International Union, which sponsored the law, to get clarification.

Eventually, the governor’s office said it’s up to a new labor-management fast food council, the state labor commissioner and, possibly, the courts to determine which businesses have to pay the higher wage ($4 an hour more than the statewide minimum).

That’s basically what happened with bakeries after “PaneraGate” — what legislative Republicans call the questions raised about a billionaire Panera Bread franchisee’s relationship with Gov. Newsom and a possible exemption. Both Newsom and franchisee Greg Flynn denied anything untoward. At the fast food council’s first meeting this month, the state labor commission’s lawyer confirmed that bakeries that use premixed dough, including Panera, must pay $20 and that only bakeries that prepare and bake bread on site and sell it separately may qualify for an exemption.

While many of California’s 540,000 fast food workers will get a more livable wage, some customers will likely pay more for their burgers and burritos.

• Joseph Bryant, SEIU’s executive vice president and a member of a new statewide fast food regulatory council, in a statement: “The vast majority of fast-food locations in California operate under the most profitable brands in the world. Those corporations need to pay their fair share… without cutting jobs or passing the cost to consumers.”

Read more about the confusion on who will get paid more in Jeanne’s story.

Also, as Jeanne has detailed, the deal that produced the wage hike is starting to unravel. Some McDonald’s franchisees created a political action committee that targeted two Democratic Assemblymembers. The PAC went one for two: Pasadena Assemblymember Chris Holden, the law’s author, finished a distant second in his run for Los Angeles County supervisor, but Kevin McCarty of Sacramento made the November runoff for mayor.

When UC Berkeley graduate student Ryan Manriquez realized he would not be able to safely evacuate his apartment building, he broke down in tears. Manriquez uses a power wheelchair to get around, but when a false fire alarm went off last September, the elevators in his university-operated building shut down.

Manriquez had requested a specialized evacuation chair before moving in, and two were eventually installed in his building after he recounted his experience at a UC Board Regents meeting. Still, his experience bears out the difficulties students with disabilities can encounter in campus emergency protocols, reports Amelia Wu of CalMatters’ College Journalism Network.

People with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by disasters and emergencies, and are two to four times more likely to die or be injured in emergencies compared to non-disabled people.

The University of California’s Office of Civil Rights, launched in February, is responsible for developing policies to accommodate disabled students and others, including emergency exits. But so far, the university system does not keep track of how many buildings have evacuation chairs across its 10 campuses. And though all campuses have emergency protocols for students with disabilities, some are more extensive than others.

California State University’s 23 campuses have emergency management programs, but no accessibility protocols. In 2021, a Cal Poly Humboldt student sued the campus over accessibility, including the school’s lack of an emergency evacuation plan. The case was settled in 2023.

As for the California Community Colleges, its chancellor’s office instructs campuses to follow the state-recommended evacuation guides, and urges districts “comply” with the guidelines.

To learn more about this issue, read Amelia’s story.

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To curb job losses among Black workers during the pandemic, the Los Angeles Black Worker Center partnered with the L.A. Department of Public Works in 2022 to launch a training program that aimed to place 200 Black workers in government jobs by June 2024.

But as Alejandra Reyes-Velarde of CalMatters’ California Divide team explains, only 49 of the 83 people trained have been hired to date — most of them in the city’s sanitation department.

Tekoah “TK” Flory, a program participant, received training on resume building, leadership, interview preparation and more. But the city’s street lighting bureau rescinded a job offer last September: “Even though I’m qualified, even though I meet all of these things… I no longer had an opportunity to work with the city,” Flory said.

Meanwhile, street lighting has 112 open positions, and other city departments still have hundreds of open jobs.

Why the sluggish hiring rate? Besides the months-long application processes for city jobs, L.A. is facing a nearly $300 million budget deficit, and Mayor Karen Bass is moving to cut the 2,000 vacant jobs. Still, in an email to CalMatters, Bass’ office said that it is “vital” that Black workers have access to city jobs.

• Zach Seidl, spokesperson for the mayor: “The mayor will continue work to make sure the current economic picture does not roll back that commitment.”

According to a labor economist with the Public Policy Institute of California, job loss rates were higher among Black workers than other demographic groups during the pandemic and have been slow to rebound. Historically, the public sector has been a source of good jobs for Black people, with Black public sector workers in L.A. County making more money and owning more homes compared to their private sector counterparts.

For more on this issue, read Alejandra’s story.

CalMatters Commentary

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: The state’s motorists are not only paying high gas prices, but high fuel taxes — and not getting much in return.