Today our chef announced that everyone involved in food prep will now have to have a food handler's safety certificate. (Previously there only had to be someone who had one in the kitchen any time food was being prepared.)
The problem is, the restaurant industry in our area relies heavily on immigrant labor. Good knife skills translate into any language and prep cook is one of the few jobs that pays more than minimum without having to be literate. Not much more, but more. Many cooks are not fluent in English, and they don't have to be, as long as what they're doing doesn't require them to read recipes.
Chef said that the company would make sure everyone got trained on the company's dime, and the exam could be taken in English, Spanish or Chinese. Which is great, as far as it goes, but what about the people who don't read any of those languages?
If this is for real and not something Chef pulled out of his butt, we're going to lose the backbone of our kitchen. It seems like discrimination against immigrants from countries outside of those which speak those three languages.