AN ACT Relating to employment opportunity training programs in restaurants and grocery stores; adding a new section to chapter 49.46 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 49.46 RCW to read as follows:

The director shall establish procedures for the issuance of special training certificates to employers to pay wages to new employees during a training period at seventy-five percent of the minimum wage required under RCW 49.46.020 or the minimum wage rate required under federal law, whichever is greater. The following restrictions apply to the use of the training certificates:

(1) The training period shall last for a maximum of six hundred eighty hours;

(2) Employers may only use this special training certificate once per employee;

(3) Only employers licensed to operate as a restaurant or grocery store may use the special training certificate;

(4) Qualified employees must be twenty-five years or younger or reentering the workforce after five years of unemployment;

(5) Employees working under this special training certificate may not constitute more than ten percent of an employer's workforce, except that employers with fewer than ten employees may employ one employee at a time using the special training certificate; and

(6) If an employer discharges an employee working under the special training certificate prior to the completion of six hundred eighty hours, the employer must notify the director and provide an explanation for the discharge. The employer may not replace the discharged employee with another employee working under a special training certificate for one year from the date of the discharge.

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