Labor
More restaurant jobs and the stimulus package foreshadow the industry’s coming recovery
CNBC 3/6
Restaurants and bars gained 286,000 workers in February, the latest sign that the industry’s recovery is on the horizon after a long, cold winter.
Long Beach Offers Hundreds of Vaccinations to Food Industry Employees, No Appointment Needed
NBC Los Angeles 3/5
Hundreds of no-appointment slots were open to restaurant and grocery store workers as Long Beach works to vaccinate food industry employees.
Food Industry Policy
Covid-19: Restaurant Dining and Lack of Mask Mandates Are Each Linked to U.S. Virus Spread, C.D.C. Says
The New York Times 3/7
The researchers also found that counties opening restaurants for on-premises dining — indoors or outdoors — saw a rise in daily infections about six weeks later, and an increase in Covid-19 death rates about two months later. The study does not prove cause and effect, but the findings square with other research showing that masks prevent infection and that indoor spaces foster the spread of the virus through aerosols, tiny respiratory particles that linger in the air.
Letters to the Editor: Gavin Newsom stabbed workers in the back by being silent on Prop. 22
Los Angeles Times 3/6
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Future of Work Commission called for a new “social compact” for workers — an aspiration that took a knife in the back from Newsom’s silence on Proposition 22 last November. On the report’s goals for improving workers’ wages, benefits and rights, increasing racial equity and unionization, Proposition 22 did the opposite. It institutionalized rideshare drivers’ status as poverty-level, informal workers.
On the Side
Governor waives fees for thousands alcoholic beverage licensees
Redlands Community News 3/6
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a COVID-19 relief package that includes fee waivers for roughly 59,000 eligible businesses licensed by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). The fee waivers will provide much needed assistance to on-sale licensees such as restaurants and bars, that have been heavily impacted by the public health and safety restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Placer County restaurant coalition to sue Gov. Newsom, state over COVID-19 restrictions
The Sacramento Bee 3/5
A group of Placer County restaurants and bars are suing Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state of California, arguing the governor’s executive orders aimed at stopping COVID-19’s spread have been unconstitutional overreach and the state of emergency should be lifted.
