No paid sick days in foodservice - bad news

Here is a blog post flagged by Doug Powell of the Food Safety Network about how company policy can work against food safety policy.From the post:

Last week, some 432 people became ill after eating at a Chipotle restaurant in Kent, Ohio because of a norovirus believed to have been brought to work by a sick employee who did not have paid sick days. To highlight the importance of paid sick days to the public health and encourage Ohio legislators to support the paid sick days legislation pending in the Ohio General Assembly, advocates will deliver "Burrito-Grams" (Chipotle burritos bearing messages) to the members of the Commerce and Labor Committee, urging them to support the Ohio Healthy Families Act, HB536.

Attorney's are cashing in against food service outlets that do not have paid sick days for their employees:

This Germ Central article leads with a Carrabba's restaurant incident in Michigan...

"Key in prevention...is rethinking sick-leave policies."

"Attorneys who specialize in food-borne illness complaints, however, contend that established sick-leave policies could offer restaurants some protection in the event of a lawsuit."

"Dave Babcock, an attorney with Marler Clark, a Seattle-based law firm that represented plaintiffs in the 1993 E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box, pointed to a 1996 norovirus outbreak at the Reno Hilton in Nevada. In that case, a jury awarded six victims punitive damages of $25 million, in part because the casino did not have a sick-leave policy."

marlerclark.com a law firm discusses how an ill food service worker contaminated lettuce for sub sandwiches served by Blimpies at a school luncheon.

6 People with Hepatitis A Ate at Chipotle in La Mesa, California

In most hepatitis A cases, food served to the sickened patrons was contaminated with the feces of a food handler who had hepatitis A. In the case of a restaurant like Chipotle, the most likely scenario was that a sickened food handler contaminated food while cooking or serving the food.