this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12541208

Panera Bread is exempt from following one of California’s newest laws, according to multiple reports. The new law will raise fast-food workers’ minimum wage to $20 per hour and will take effect beginning April 1.

The new law doesn’t recognize places that operate “a bakery that produces for sale on the establishment’s premises bread” as fast food, according to the law’s text.

Why the line was drawn at bread remains unclear.

However, Newsom pushed for the exemption, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. One of the primary beneficiaries of the exemption is Greg Flynn, a billionaire and longtime Newsom donor who has two dozen Panera Bread locations in California.

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I look forward to McDonald’s new fresh baked bread offerings.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (1 children)

In the South, McDonald's does offer scratch made biscuits. They're so good.

They're even better when the workers that make them can have at least minimum wage.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Which, in the South, is usually half of what it is in California

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

To be fair in California everything is double the price, plus everything also gives you cancer.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

This sticker is known to the state of California to cause cancer. (Puts sticker on cancer warning sticker.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How is the cost of living in comparison?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

In most of South Carolina you can still find houses for $100-150k.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Which it’s 1/4-1/10 of the base price for houses in CA.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out if Panera workers aren't even making as much as McDonald's workers... I suspect they'll either pay it in spite of the exemption or be forever understaffed

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I can't imagine being the literal lowest paying company in town will do them any favors

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Right?

I wonder how much they paid to keep from having to pay their workers a living wage... And then likely wind up having to anyway if they want to have enough staff to operate...

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago

That or McDonald's starts focusing on baking bread.

[–] jballs 7 points 5 months ago

”NoBoDy waNTs tO wOrK anYMOrE!"

  • Panera owners, soon
[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Donuts, bagels, 85°, bahn mi shops, heck Safeway/Lucky's/Walmart?

That's a lot of exclusions and a LOT of already screwed over employees not getting a break.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

I wouldn't have a problem at all if every Californian baker joined a bakers union and stopped production.n

[–] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Depends on what degree the "on site bakery" needs to resemble an actual one.

I can see mcds adding a glass window with some muffins and calling that a "bakery" just to skirt the law.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Subway already bakes cookies. Starbucks bakes a bunch of stuff. I'm sure McDonald's would be happy to put a single tiny oven to bake their apple pies in each location.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Um... subway also bakes the bread lol. They get the dough in boxes and bake them daily.

The cookies though, idk about Subway but McDonalds gets them premade and throws them in the oven for a bit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Apple pies aren't bread per the FDA definition of "bread", see here:

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=136&showFR=1

These places would need to start producing full loaves to meet that definiton

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Baking a loaf once a day isn't all that hard especially if you just bought a bread maker. This could easily be like the era before internet porn where porn stores would have some regular books in the window.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

It's a state law. It's the definition there that matters.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

And don't forget any place that toasts your bread. Basically, all a place needs is a toaster oven and suddenly they are exempt.

[–] jballs 34 points 5 months ago

"Sir, I ran the numbers. We can expand the restaurant to add ovens for the bakery to sell fresh bread. It'll cost us $2,000,000 for the expansion and we're projecting to lose half a million a year in operating costs. Or we can just pay our dozen employees an extra $2 an hour, making our employees happier, increasing retention rates, reducing training costs, and all in all just being the right thing to do "

"Good work, Johnson. I want those ovens up and running by Monday."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

put an easy bake oven next to the microwave, make one batch a day.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Ding ding ding. Give this person a fresh pastry.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 months ago

What the actual fuck in corruption!

[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 months ago

sounds like every business in california is gonna start making and selling 1 loaf of bread every day because of blatant corruption

[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago

Why should bakers make less than french fry cooks?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Lol they'll lose their employees faster than it takes to bake bread if every other business is paying more.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Until every other company figures out how to make and sell bread. "Would you like a McLoaf with your order?"

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago

This is the problem with crappy laws. McDonalds bakes rolls which are bread.

I thought the bakery exemption was weird.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

still a tricky debacle because there's no guarantee McDonald's will hire a former Panera employee, if McDonald's is not hiring because other positions are already full, including all customer orders taken from a robot kiosk.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

McDonald's and Carl's Jr have been trying to replace employees with robots for orders for a very long time. They've never had much success because old people suck at using these kiosks and don't even bother trying

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It’s are article written by a bot? All the links feel like the trash sources that GPT4 tries to grab.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

The random ones interspersed throughout the article are to get you to read other stories for more ad views. If the links in the text point back to the same site, they're probably automated, for the same reason. The article text itself doesn't seem generated.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago

God damn it, Newsom. Do better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

i hate the usa so much

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

When you're a billionaire, laws are nothing more than recommendations.

[–] IdiosyncraticIdiot 12 points 5 months ago

Newsom corruption? I would have NEVER guessed clutches pearls

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Sounds like Greg Flynn got his moneys worth.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

California’s minimum wage is $16 per hour. Starting April 1, most fast-food restaurants must pay their workers at least $20 an hour under new legislation that Newsom signed last year, **but it does not apply to restaurants that have on-site bakeries and sell bread as a stand-alone menu item, **The Associated Press reported.

Panera doesn't make jet engines, either. WTF does that have to do with wages?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Welcome to California. The most liberal state.

As long as you have a net worth more than 10 million USD...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

He's from St. Louis?