California Assemblymember Lorena Gonzales (D-San Diego), who wrote a bill that has negatively impacted the state’s gig worker economy, now wants to license adult entertainment actors and workers.
Gonzales, along with with fellow Assemblymember Christina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), proposed a bill earlier this week that would require adult entertainers, performers, and web-cam models to undergo state-mandated training and obtain a “certificate of training completion” before entertainers are permitted to film on camera.
According to the bill, the training course will provide information on the rights of adult entertainment actors including how to report workplace abuse or injuries.
In addition, adult entertainers would be given information about how to identify human trafficking victims, as well as undergo fingerprinting.
Garcia told Reason Magazine that the final training course will resemble the certification process used in other industries, including the food service industries.
The training curriculum would be developed by an adult entertainment advisory committee consisting of 10 people including two adult entertainers, three dancers, two doctors, a therapist, and a money manager. They would all be paid $200 per day for each day the committee meets.
The course would last approximately three hours, though an online version would be developed as well.
President of the Adult Entertainment Guild, Alana Evans, slammed the proposal. She also criticized Gonzales for not mentioning it when the two of them met recently to discuss the gig economy law.
“We are shocked, disgusted and angry that our parent union did this without discussing it with APAG, without discussing it with the industry and without discussing it with stakeholders,” said Evans.
“Nobody contacted us about this. Not the [International Adult Entertainment Union], not Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who I met Thursday to discuss A.B. 5.”