Fast food chains in California are slashing jobs – as a way to cut costs after the minimum wage in the state was hiked to $20-an-hour. 

Almost 10,000 positions across chains from Pizza Hut to Burger King have been cut since the law came into effect on April 1, according to a report from a trade group in the state. 

On top of that, chains have been shuttering restaurants – including beloved Mexican chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill, which this week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed 48 locations in the state.  

The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) slammed Governor Gavin Newsom was for pushing the law through, which has also meant businesses in the state have had to raise prices.   

To highlight the impact of the law, the trade group created out an advert in Thursday’s edition of USA Today with mock ‘obituaries’ of popular brands.

The tongue-in-cheek advert, titled ‘In Memoriam: Victims of Newsom’s minimum wage’, highlighted the issues faced by smaller brands including Rubio’s, and fast food giants including Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and McDonald’s. 

It features news clips documenting the changes made by companies in response to the wage increase.

This includes raising prices, letting go of workers to cut labor costs – and in some cases shutting down locations. 

One says: ‘A McDonald’s franchisee who owns 18 outposts in California is considering reducing store hours, hiking menu prices and delaying renovations to offset the impact of the state’s $20 hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers.’

Even before the law was made official earlier this year, chains including Pizza Hut and Round Table let go of more than a thousands delivery workers to brace for the financial ramifications of the change. 

The law signed by Newsom in September last year increases fast-food workers’ minimum wages to $20-an-hour at chains with more than 60 locations in the US.

That is 25 percent more than the standard minimum wage of $16-an-hour in California, which itself came into effect in January.

On a national level, Congress has not touched the minimum wage in decades – it is still $7.25-an-hour. Instead, so-called ‘wage wars’ play out on a state level. 

‘California businesses have been under total attack and total assault for years,’ CABIA president and founder Tom Manzo told Fox Business. 

‘It’s just another law that puts businesses in further jeopardy.’

He said that officials were living in a ‘fantasyland’ if they think drastic wage increases will actually help workers or businesses. 

‘You can only raise prices so much,’ Manzo told the outlet. ‘And you’re seeing it. People are not going to pay $20 for a Big Mac. It’s not going to happen.’ 

To highlight the impact of the law, the trade group took out a fake ad in Thursday’s edition of USA Today with mock ‘obituaries’ of popular brands

Rubio’s Coastal Grill announced it would shut 48 restaurants in the state this week (Pictured: The grand opening of the third Rubio’s location in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, California in 1986)

Critics warned that businesses would turn to digital ordering kiosks as a way to cut down on wage costs for staff

When the Democrat governor signed the law in 2023, Newsom said the state was getting ‘one step closer to fairer wages, safer and healthier working conditions, and better training by giving hardworking fast food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table.’

But Republican critics claimed the wage hike would simply mean workers are replaced with self-checkouts and ‘robot cooks.’ 

Harsh Ghai, a Burger King franchisee with 140 restaurants on the West Coast announced in April how he planned to have digital kiosks installed in all his locations in two months. 

Until the wage hike, he planned to roll them out over the next five to ten years. 

‘We have kiosks in probably about 25 percent of our restaurants today,’ Ghai told Business Insider at the time.

‘However, the other 75 percent are going to have kiosks in the next probably 30 to 60 days.’

An extremely rare sighting has occurred off the coast of California and biologists say they are thrilled by the discovery.

A North Pacific right whale was spotted near Point Reyes by a marine wildlife team that was in the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Jenna Malek, North Pacific right whale recovery coordinator and marine mammal specialist, told Fox News Digital.

“This is very exciting for us because we know very little about where these whales go when they’re not in Alaska,” Malek said.

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“So this helps us to better understand some of the areas that they might be frequenting, what time of year they might be there and what type of activities they are doing.”

Malek said there have only been a few sightings of the mammal since the 1970s — with 15 of those reports recorded in California.

Right whales have very distinctive features, which is how the trained species observers were able to identify the whale as the rare North Pacific right whale.

Two distinguishing features include the V-shaped blow of the right whale — compared to the vertical spout of a humpback whale.

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Right whales also have what is referred to as “calluses” on their heads.

“These are white patches of rough skin that have things like barnacles on them, and those are actually what we use to identify individual right whales, because it’s sort of like a fingerprint,” Malek said.

“So the pattern doesn’t change as the whale ages, and so we could get a picture of that and say, ‘Oh, we’ve sighted this whale previously based on this information.’”

Due to the rocky conditions in the sea at the time of the sighting in late May, the observers were not able to get a solid look at the calluses on the head of the North Pacific right whale to determine its identity.

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Based on the footage captured by the observation crew, the whale was believed to be in a state of behavior called “milling,” in which it was resting on the surface and not traveling in a specific direction or actively feeding.

Less than 50 North Pacific right whales are believed to make up the eastern population and only 300-400 of the entire species remain, scientists say. (NOAA/Pt. Blue/ACCESS, D. Devlin)

“This whale just seemed to be taking it easy because it wasn’t moving … and so, because of that slow breath pace and the lack of movement in any given direction, it’s likely that it was resting or sleeping,” Malek said.

Less than 50 North Pacific right whales make up the eastern population.

The location of this sighting adds to its rarity because less than 50 North Pacific right whales make up the eastern population.

In the entirety of the species on the eastern and western sides, only 300 to 400 remain, Malek said.

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“There’s a population that’s on the western side of the North Pacific off of Russia and Japan, and this population is doing a little bit better than the ones we have here off the coast of the U.S. and Canada, but we don’t know enough about them,” the marine specialist added.

Based on the genetic analysis that her team has been conducting, they do not believe that any sort of interbreeding has taken place between the eastern and western North Pacific right whales, but there are believed to be a limited number of breeding females.

Malek said there are still many things about the North Pacific right whale the team is hoping to learn; sightings like this play a large role in discovering behaviors and habits of this rare mammal.

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“We have not been able to identify any definitive migratory pathway or breeding and calving area for the North Pacific right whales, and that includes looking at historical whaling logs,” the expert added.

“This whale may have been in Alaska or may have been further north, but now it’s in California.”

“There’s nothing that really stands out as a place that they’re going from point A to point B pretty consistently every year, so seeing them off of California is interesting for us,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily indicate that this is [an] ecologically important area for them, but it does tell us that this whale may have been in Alaska or may have been further north, but now it’s in California.”

Aside from the state of Alaska, California has become the location with the highest number of North Pacific right whale sightings. (NOAA/Pt. Blue/ACCESS, D. Devlin)

Aside from Alaska, California has become the location with the highest number of North Pacific right whale sightings.

Malek said there has been an increase in sightings recently and, while that does not necessarily mean that the population is increasing, it does mean that people are able to identify them and are better at reporting their findings.

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For those who may come across this endangered species while in the water, the team says it’s best to report the discovery to np.rw@noaa.gov and an expert will respond to verify the sighting.

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“We encourage folks to take pictures from a respectful distance. Collect that kind of information and then report it to our fisheries because each and every single sighting is incredibly valuable to us.”

Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic Vision, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.

Like many other high schools, Los Gatos High School strives to make students better citizens who are knowledgeable about the impact of climate change. The issue is part of the school’s curriculum in advanced placement Environmental Science, Biology, Government, and English classes.

But when students need to dispose of their recyclable waste, there is no option but to toss everything into the solid waste garbage bin. The cafeteria serves food to around 1,200 students each day, creating a mountain of aluminum, plastic, and uneaten food. Yet composting, as well as recycling for aluminum and plastic, are not available options.The cafeteria recycling bins are padlocked shut during the day, with Los Gatos High offering recycling only for clean paper.

The school’s non-recycling stance contradicts California’s recycling laws. When the state’s Mandatory Commercial Recycling law took effect in June, 2012, public entities that generated a specified threshold of solid waste were required to “reuse, recycle, compost, or otherwise divert solid waste from disposal,” according to CalRecycle, the state entity responsible for recycling.

CalRecycle’s website clearly spells out the rules as they apply to schools: “Wherever recycling or organic waste is generated, a school must provide an appropriate container adjacent to the solid waste container to capture and divert recycling and organic waste. Containers must be easily accessible, visible, and clearly labeled.”

If the law is so straightforward, why isn’t the school complying?

A big issue was the contamination of the recycling bins with non-recyclable materials. Students were dumping non-recyclable garbage into the recycling bins to the point that, in 2021, the school’s Environmental Outreach Club decided to ask the school to padlock the bins to prevent students from disposing unsorted materials into them.

The school does collect recyclable paper in cardboard containers throughout the school – and the bins essentially are used as a collection point for that recycled clean paper – but not material generated from cafeteria lunches.

Despite acknowledging his familiarity with Senate Bill 1383, the state’s recycling legislation, Principal Kevin Buchanan stands firmly behind the school’s policy of non-compliance. “I occasionally notice one or two [recycling bins] with missing locks and I put in a work order to have them replaced,” he said.

CalRecycle only investigates school compliance if someone files a complaint. That’s something that rarely happens, to the degree that “Enforcement staff did not receive any complaints or referrals last year for school districts, so no local education agencies were evaluated in 2023,” said Lance Klug, a CalRecycle spokesperson.

Even as schools like Los Gatos High get a free pass on not recycling, the state is widening efforts to encourage recycling by passing laws as a new Edible Food Recovery law, which took effect on Jan. 1. It requires local education agencies with an on-site cafeteria to donate all uneaten and unused food to a food recovery organization and keep records about their donations.

Some students feel that the school could comply with recycling laws if it did a more aggressive job of educating students about what to recycle and how to properly do it.

“I think that we should have more clubs that teach people how to recycle. No one at our school has explained that type of stuff. ” said Kiana Mehrany, senior.

“I always see everyone throwing away the food and the trash in the same trash can,” said junior Haley Jung. “Nobody is doing recycling at the school except for paper, but I think that’s not going well.”

While some area schools have much more efficient recycling programs, the students have similar attitudes. Evergreen Valley High School Student Minh-Khang Le thinks his San Jose school’s program, which involves recycling bins that easily divide waste into trash recycling and composting, does a good job. However, he thinks that more people should be better educated on recycling, saying “some students don’t think too much about it and put everything in a nearby bin that looks like trash.”.

Amanda Robison, a student at Leigh High School in San Jose, mirrors Le’s beliefs, expressing concern that no matter what their school does, it is only as effective as the students’ willingness to actually recycle, saying “they’ll just throw stuff in whatever bin is closer.”

Meanwhile, unless anyone officially complains, Los Gatos High’s non-recycling approach is unlikely to change.

For those who want to take that step, CalRecycles spokesperson Klug says complaints may be filed online.