A coalition of California State legislators, including State Sen. Monique Limon, gathered at the State Capitol recently to advocate for SB476, a bill that would ensure low-wage food service workers who are currently required to take and pay for food safety training will no longer be required to foot the bill for the training.
In a show of solidarity, legislators and advocates spoke at the rally organized by One Fair Wage. Participants showed solidarity with the workers and emphasize the need for businesses to bear the expenses of food handling training, rather than passing the fees onto their employees.
The event underscores the urgency of SB476, which recently passed the California Senate 30-9 and is currently in the California Assembly. If signed into law, SB476 would address both the requirement for workers to pay for mandatory food service training and decrease the National Restaurant Association’s ability to use their company ServSafe’s food handling training fees to lobby against workers’ interests.
A recent New York Times investigation unveiled how mandatory $15 food-safety classes, run by ServSafe, have been used to turn cooks, waiters and bartenders into unintentional contributors to the industry’s lobbying efforts against wage increases.
Since 2010, this method has amassed some$25 million in revenue from more than 3.6 million workers, fortifying the restaurant industry’s lobbying endeavors, the Times reported.
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