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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/15/california-fast-food-minimum-wage-deal-what-to-know.html\n\n* From 2025 through 2029, a nine-person council will have the authority to raise the hourly minimum wage annually for affected businesses. Workers will get at least CPI. If higher than 3.5% minimum that amount and council will determine pay.\n* The California minimum wage for fast-food workers is on track to rise to $20 an hour next April.\n* The pay hike is part of deal between the restaurant industry and labor groups over controversial legislation in California.\n* Tickers mentioned in article CMG, YUM, QSR, MCD, DPZ, AMZN, TGT, WMT\n\n-----------------\n\nFast-food workers in California are set to receive pay hikes next year after the restaurant industry and unions reached a compromise over a controversial bill.\n\nThe deal, brokered with the help of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, also creates a nine-person council that will decide on future wage hikes for the fast-food industry in California through 2029. The agreement ends a fight between the two sides that threatened to stretch out for years. The restaurant industry was gearing up to spend more than $100 million on the battle.\n\nThe deal will mean a wage floor of $20 for California workers at fast-food chains with at least 60 locations nationwide, starting April 1. And from 2025 through 2029, the appointed council will have the authority to raise the hourly minimum wage annually by whichever is lower: 3.5% or the annual change in the consumer price index.\n\nThe council will include four representatives from the fast-food industry, four from the workers’ side and one neutral party who will serve as chair.\n\nWhile fast-food operators will have to cope with paying higher wages, the agreement thwarts more dire consequences, according to industry analysts.\n\n“I certainly wouldn’t say it’s catastrophic, and certainly not as bad as it could have played out over the next year or two,” said Mark Kalinowski, CEO of Kalinowski Equity Research.\n\nCalifornia lawmakers rushed to conclude the matter before the legislative session ends midnight Friday. The state senate passed the bill Thursday, and the state assembly has concurred with the upper house’s amendments. Newsom, a Democrat, has already pledged to sign the bill into law.\n\n**California’s fast-food fight**\n\nNewsom signed AB 257, also known as the FAST Act, into law in January. The legislation would have created a 10-person council that would govern fast-food chains with more than 60 locations, including setting guidelines for working conditions and wages. The initial wage hike could have been as high as $22 an hour.\n\nBut the fast-food industry was attacking the bill before it even made its way to Newsom’s desk. State records show that Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chick-fil-A, Yum Brands and Restaurant Brands International were among the chains that spent money to lobby California lawmakers to oppose the legislation.\n\nMcDonald’s U.S. President Joe Erlinger wrote a letter posted on the company’s website, making a rare public statement on a political issue. Erlinger called the bill “lopsided” and “ill-considered,” attacking lawmakers for not targeting all restaurants. As of 2022, just under 10% of McDonald’s U.S. restaurants were located in California, according to Citi Research. Most are run by franchisees.\n\nThe restaurant industry retaliated, gathering enough signatures to create a referendum that would make California’s voters decide on the matter. The Service Employees International Union, which backed the FAST Act, alleged in a lawsuit that the industry misled signatories, but a judge ruled against the union. The referendum was supposed to be on November 2024 ballots.\n\nIn response to the referendum, the SEIU backed another bill, AB 1228. The bill would impose joint-employer liability on franchised businesses — including the very restaurant chains that loudly decried AB 257.\n\nUnder the bill, franchisors like McDonald’s would be held liable for infractions committed by their franchisees. Opponents said that the bill attacked the very nature of the franchising model. AB 1228′s provisions were originally included in AB 257 but removed before Newsom signed it into law.\n\nThe California State Assembly passed AB 1228 in early June. But the state’s Senate never had the chance to vote on that version.\n\nInstead, the restaurant industry and the unions struck a deal, replacing the joint-employer provisions with the terms of their agreement, which also includes repealing the FAST Act and withdrawing the referendum by Jan. 1.\n\n**What’s next for workers?**\n\nFast-food workers employed by affected restaurants will see pay increases of as much as 25% hit their paychecks starting in April. The current California minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, with a bump to $16 set for January.\n\nEmployees of smaller fast-food joints and other restaurants could also reap some benefits from the legislation.\n\n“When you look at the $20 minimum wage, that’s a bar that’s being set,” Joe Pawlak, managing principal of restaurant consulting firm Technomic, told CNBC. “That’s going to make the restaurant industry a lot more competitive for employees, so other industries are going to have to also step up.”\n\nIn recent years, Amazon warehouses and retailers like Walmart and Target have lured workers away with higher hourly pay. Now they’ll be forced to compete with fast-food chains, which have traditionally been slower to raise wages due to operators’ razor-thin margins.\n\nOther states, like Minnesota or New York, could also follow California’s lead and craft similar councils to govern restaurants or other industries, Pawlak said.\n\n″[The deal] puts a model in place with a structure that everybody is able to digest,” he said.\n\nStill, labor’s side had to make some trade-offs to get the deal in California. One key concession is that the council won’t have the power to set working conditions. Instead, the Fast Food Council will only be able to recommend proposed standards to state agencies.\n\nBut that doesn’t mean that unions won’t keep trying to push for better conditions.\n\n“Fast-food workers’ fight in California isn’t close to over — it has only just begun as they prepare to take their seat at the table and help transform their industry for the better,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement to CNBC.\n\n**What does it mean for restaurants?**\n\nFaced with a mandate to pay higher wages, fast-food operators will have to decide how they plan to deal with elevated labor costs. Some may raise menu prices, although customers may balk at having to foot the bill. Others may try to make do with fewer workers on hand or to invest in automation to handle more tasks.\n\nBut it’s not all gloomy for restaurants.\n\n“This agreement protects local restaurant owners from significant threats that would have made it difficult to continue to operate in California. It provides a more predictable and stable future for restaurants, workers, and consumers,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement.\n\nThe chief uncertainty resolved by the deal is the referendum slated for November 2024 ballots. The industry had already spent more than $64 million on the referendum, according to California records, and was preparing to spend much more. But it would be difficult to predict which side voters would take.\n\n″[The agreement] shows just how concerned the industry was,” Kalinowski said. “The referendum would have been very challenging, to have it come out their way.”\n\nOn top of that, restaurant chains like In-N-Out now save some cash that otherwise would have gone toward the industry’s war chest.\n\nThe deal also avoids the change to joint-employer liability that was feared by the broader franchising industry.\n\n“This allows the franchise model to exist,” said Dana Kravetz, a Los Angeles-based labor attorney at Michelman & Robinson.\n\nFast-food companies with heavily franchised footprints, like McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell and Domino’s Pizza, will largely escape the effects of the bill, unless they have company-owned locations in California.\n\nInstead, their franchisees will have to grapple with how to pay higher wages. The National Owners Association, an independent advocacy group of McDonald’s franchisees, plans to push back. In a memo viewed by CNBC, the NOA projects the bill will cost each restaurant in the state $250,000 annually.\n\nRestaurant companies that don’t franchise will have to foot the bill for increased labor costs themselves. That includes Chipotle Mexican Grill, which has 457 locations — or 14% of its total footprint — in its home state of California."

ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/restaurant-brands-international-q4-2022.html\n\nRestaurant Brands International on Tuesday posted a strong fourth quarter and named Chief Operating Officer Joshua Kobza as its new chief executive, effective March 1, replacing José Cil.\n\n“Over the past several years, the Board of Directors has worked with management to build a thoughtful succession plan for key positions, so this is a natural transition for Josh to lead our next phase of growth,” Chairman Patrick Doyle said in a Tuesday announcement.\n\nCil will stay on with the company for a year as an advisor to help with the transition.\n\nThe leadership change comes as the company works to revive and expand some of its key restaurants. Restaurant Brands houses chains Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeyes and most recently Firehouse Subs.\n\nThe company reported a slight miss on earnings, but beat on revenue compared to analyst’s expectations. As the company heads into its new fiscal year with a new CEO at the helm, it is preparing for an “accelerated pace of growth for the next five to 10 years,” Doyle said on a call with analysts.\n\nShares of the company fell 5% in early trading Tuesday, despite the largely upbeat report.\n\nHere’s how Restaurant Brands performed in the fourth quarter, compared with what Wall Street anticipated, based on an average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Refinitiv:\n\nAdjusted earnings per share: 72 cents vs. 74 cents\n\n\nRevenue: $1.69 billion vs. $1.67 billion expected\n\n\nFor the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported net income of $336 million, or 74 cents per share, up from $262 million, or 57 cents per share, a year earlier.\n\nQuarterly revenue of $1.69 billion marked a year-over-year increase of about 9%.\n\nRestaurant Brands reported overall same-store sales growth of 8% during the fourth quarter and systemwide sales growth of nearly 12%.\n\nIts flagship burger chain, Burger King, saw same-store sales growth of 8.4% during the period. In the U.S. only, sales grew by 5%. Domestic sales for the Burger King chain have sagged, especially as some franchisees struggle. At the beginning of the year, a Burger King franchise operator with locations in four states filed for bankruptcy.\n\nThe company has been working to rejuvenate Burger King’s domestic sales and in September announced a $400 million investment plan to boost Burger King advertising campaigns and renovate the chain’s restaurant locations.\n\nAt the end of the fourth quarter, the company said it had funded $30 million of that turnaround plan. Restaurant Brand executives said on a call with analysts that though they were pleased with initial turnaround outcomes, they still have “real progress that we need to make in order to continue to drive growth.”\n\nThe company previously said it expects to reap the benefits of the turnaround in 2025.\n\nTim Horton’s same-store sales grew by 9.4% during the period. In Canada alone, same-store sales for the coffee brand rose 11%. The chain has been expanding more internationally, especially eyeing Texas and Florida to target Canadians who travel to warmer climates for the winter.\n\nPopeyes saw same-store sales grow by 3.8%. The chain, which saw a spike in sales with its 2019 debut of its chicken sandwich, has since stabilized and saw just 1.5% growth in the U.S.\n\nRestaurant Brands added Firehouse Subs to its portfolio in 2021. That chain saw a 0.4% same-store sales increase during the period.\n\nRestaurant Brands has not been immune to industrywide rising costs and losses in China and Russia. The company said it took less of a hit from Covid-related disruptions during the fourth quarter, though it noted that it had to temporarily close some of its restaurants in markets like China that experienced a resurgence in cases.\n\nIt also said that it did not generate any new profits from Russia in 2022 and does not anticipate any in 2023 either. The company last year suspended corporate support for a large Burger King franchise in the country in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.\n\nCovid and the war in Ukraine have created a tough macroenvironment for the company due to foreign exchange headwinds and climbing interest rates. Restaurant Brands said Tuesday it expects “adverse impact on our business” if it cannot adjust prices to compensate for higher costs.\n\nSo far, higher prices domestically have not scared away the company’s consumer base. Fast-food companies across the industry have seen boosted demand among budget-conscious customers, beating out fast-casual dining options.\n\nYum Brands reported a strong fourth quarter last week, mostly propped up by its Taco Bell segment as weak China sales weighed on Pizza Hut and KFC. The company credited U.S. momentum to its chains’ affordable options.\n\nSimilarly, McDonald’s profited from changes in consumer spending behavior with a fourth-quarter revenue bump fueled by higher menu prices and increased demand."