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Restaurant lobby group has siphoned off $25 million from workers to support its anti-worker efforts [1]
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Date: 2023-01-17
The timing wasn’t coincidental on the acquisition of ServSafe: It happened soon after Congress raised the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour (where it remains stuck, thanks to industry lobby groups like the NRA), leaving the organization looking for ways to raise revenue without raising dues.
“That’s when the decision was contemplated, of buying the ServSafe program,” a former chair of the NRA’s board told the Times. “Because it was profitable.”
Here’s some more context for how much money the restaurant lobby is extracting from workers to do work against their interests:
x Since 2010, 3.6 million workers have paid for ServSave courses, providing $25 million to the NRA—enough to fund all of its lobbying costs, the Times found.
The funding extracted from everyday workers dwarfs the amount that some of the NRA's large corporate donors provide. pic.twitter.com/o8TwyB6z9X — More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) January 17, 2023
Consider that the next time you hear someone claiming that union dues—which are used to represent workers directly at their jobs and in policy advocacy—are too costly.
“I’m sitting up here working hard, paying this money so that I can work this job, so I can provide for my family,” Mysheka Ronquillo, a line cook at a fast food restaurant and a private school cafeteria in California, told the Times. “And I’m giving y’all money so y’all can go against me?” Ronquillo has been required to take a food safety course every three years, with ServSafe being the standard option available.
The states that passed a requirement for all restaurant workers, not just managers, to take the food safety course (sample information offered by the Times: “strawberries aren’t supposed to be white and fuzzy, that’s mold”) did so in the name of reducing food-borne illness. But—completely unsurprisingly—the NRA, which lobbied for those laws, has also worked hard to squash paid sick leave legislation. They don’t care about keeping customers healthy when it’s a question of making cooks and waiters go to work sick.
There are alternatives to using ServSafe, although they’re from much smaller companies. And, Restaurant Opportunities Centers head Saru Jayaraman told the Times, “We’ll be telling [workers] to use any possible alternatives.” That may make only a small dent in the profits flowing to the NRA to support its efforts making the lives of restaurant workers worse, but it’s a start in giving ServSafe more meaningful competition.
The whole report on the (other) NRA and ServSafe is also an important reminder to diners and consumers of news alike on how to assess information that comes from the restaurant lobby group.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/17/2147701/-Restaurant-lobby-group-has-siphoned-off-25-million-from-workers-to-support-its-anti-worker-efforts
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