Updates Feb 26 story to add context from McDonald's and its USA president in paragraphs 12-15

By Waylon Cunningham

Feb 26 (Reuters) - One year after California introduced a first-of-its-kind $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers, an increase of up to 70 cents is slated for a vote.

California's Fast Food Council, comprised of fast-food workers, restaurant owners and state officials, approved a motion Wednesday to consider a cost-of-living-adjustment at an upcoming meeting.

The Council's next meeting, expected to take place in April or May, will be for further discussion and not see a vote taken on a decision about it.

Before the vote, the Council heard scores of public comments.

Business owners said not enough time has passed since the $20 minimum wage went into effect to study the effects, which they say has already led to higher consumer prices and less jobs for workers.

Workers and labor advocates said the increase was needed to address rising costs of living in one of the country's most expensive states to live.

Veronica Gonzales, a fast-food worker, spoke remotely from a room full of workers organized under the California Fast Food Workers Union’s San Jose chapter. Through a translator, she said in Spanish that the cost of her rent and her medicine has gone up.

“I cannot live with this wage,” she said.

The possibility of a wage increase, which would be the first for the Council since the state created it last year alongside the $20 fast-food minimum wage, has become a flashpoint in a growing debate about California’s unique effort to regulate the fast-food industry.

California is home to more than half a million fast-food workers, more than any other U.S. state.

California’s law empowers the Council to regulate fast-food restaurants that are part of chains with more than 60 locations nationwide, including wage increases every year of either 3.5% or the increase in the consumer price index, whichever is smaller.

When the California legislature first approved a fast-food-specific minimum wage in 2022, McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger objected to what he called in a letter on its website "lopsided" legislation.

A McDonald's spokeswoman said that Erlinger's letter was clear that he "welcomes legislation that increases wages for all workers, as long as it is done thoughtfully and fairly."

In the letter, Erlinger said the legislation would impose "higher costs on one type of restaurant" -- those franchisees that are part of a large national chain-- "while sparing another" -- independent restaurants and franchisees of smaller chains as well as certain restaurants that bake bread.

Erlinger also said the bill “should raise alarm bells across the country” because it had the potential to influence other states into making similar laws.

(Reporting by Waylon Cunningham; Editing by Stephen Coates)

((Waylon.Cunningham@thomsonreuters.com;))