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As new minimum wages are ushered in, companies fight back with fees and layoffs
An estimated 10 million low-wage earners are getting a raise in the new year, but not all employers are taking higher minimum wages across 22 states in stride.
Pizza Hut is laying off more than 1,200 delivery drivers in California ahead of the state’s nearly 30% increase in its minimum wage, to $20 an hour from $16. PacPizza, operating as Pizza Hut, and Southern California Pizza Co. — another Pizza Hut franchise, both gave notice of layoffs impacting workers in cities throughout the state, Business Insider reported, citing notices filed with the state.
At least one Pizza Hut franchisee also charges a service fee, citing the increased cost of operating in California in its tacking on an 8.5% service charge to the bill, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Chain owner Yum Brands did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fast-food chains including McDonald’s have already said menu prices would rise in the state to counter the higher labor costs.
The Golden Arches in November said its menu prices rose just over 10% nationwide this year, with CEO Chris Kempczinski telling analysts in an earnings call that “there will certainly be a hit in the short-term to franchisee cash flow in California.”
On the other side of the country, DoorDash is getting rid of tipping prompts in New York City and upping its service fee to all transactions, but is still letting customers add gratuity once the delivery is finished, the delivery app said.
The changes come in response to a new minimum wage hike for app-based food delivery workers in New York City, who must be paid at least $17.96 an hour plus tips, or what DoorDash called “the ill-conceived, extreme minimum pay rate for food delivery workers in New York City [that] will have significant consequences for everyone who uses our platform.”
The switch in tipping policy also comes a month after DoorDash told users that customers who don’t tip may have to wait longer for their food deliveries.
“New regulations have changed how delivery apps like Uber Eats work in New York City,” Uber stated in a blog, limiting work-time options for its couriers.
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A grand jury in Nevada has again indicted Nathan Chasing Horse on charges that he sexually abused Indigenous women and girls for decades, reviving a sweeping criminal case against the former “Dances with Wolves” actor.
The 21-count indictment unsealed Thursday in Clark County District Court, which includes Las Vegas, again charges the 48-year-old with sexual assault, lewdness and kidnapping. It also adds felony charges of producing and possessing child sexual abuse materials.
It comes after the Nevada Supreme Court in September ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s original indictment, while leaving open the possibility for charges to be refiled. The court sided with Chasing Horse, saying in its scathing order that prosecutors had abused the grand jury process.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson quickly vowed to seek another indictment.
The initial 18-count indictment charged Chasing Horse with more than a dozen felonies. He had pleaded not guilty.
His lawyer, Kristy Holston, had also argued that the case should be dismissed because, the former actor said, the sexual encounters were consensual. One of his accusers was younger than 16, the age of consent in Nevada, when the abuse began, according to the indictment.
Neither Wolfson nor Holston immediately responded Thursday to phone or emailed requests for comment.
Ty ONeil / AP
Best known for portraying the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 movie “Dances with Wolves,” Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.
After starring in the Oscar-winning film, authorities have said, he propped himself up as a self-proclaimed Lakota medicine man while traveling around North America to perform healing ceremonies.
He is accused of using that position to gain the trust of vulnerable Indigenous women and girls, lead a cult and take underage wives.
Chasing Horse’s arrest last January reverberated around Indian Country and helped law enforcement in the U.S. and Canada corroborate long-standing allegations against him, leading to more criminal charges, including on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. Tribal leaders had banished Chasing Horse in 2015 from the reservation amid allegations of human trafficking.
The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with five wives. Inside the home, police found firearms, 41 pounds of marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms, and a memory card with videos of sexual assaults, CBS News previously reported. Police said that at least two of the women were underage when he married them: One was 15, police said, and another was 16.
When the Nevada Supreme Court ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s indictment, the judges said they were not weighing in on his guilt or innocence, calling the allegations against him serious. But the court said that prosecutors improperly provided the grand jury with a definition of grooming without expert testimony, and faulted them for withholding from the grand jury inconsistent statements made by one of his accusers.
Chasing Horse’s legal issues have been unfolding at the same time lawmakers and prosecutors around the U.S. are funneling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders.
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