At a gathering of the National Restaurant Association’s legal arm, lawyers and executives grappled with a worker uprising.
by Julia Rock, The Lever
“Comrades,” said Chappell Phillips, as he grabbed the microphone, “please do not leave the conference. It’s all better from here.”
Phillips, an executive at the buffet restaurant chain Golden Corral, stood at a podium in the front of a hotel ballroom in Atlanta, before some one hundred restaurant executives and managers and union avoidance lawyers mingling and sipping weak coffee.
Minutes earlier, the government’s top labor watchdog had been standing at the same podium delivering the keynote speech here at the October 2022 summit of the Restaurant Law Center, the legal arm of the National Restaurant Association.
Lobbying groups often invite government officials to their conferences to curry favor or gain insight into regulatory developments. But America’s chief enforcer of federal labor law at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had not stuck to the proverbial script.
Recent Posts
Wilson in Seattle and Mamdani in New York Back Starbucks Workers Strike
Take Action Now “I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either.” By Jon Queally, Common Dreams The mayors-elect in both Seattle and…
‘The Trump Administration Needs to Be Isolated in Its Anti-Science Actions’: CounterSpin interview with Rachel Cleetus on climate complicity
Take Action Now Janine Jackson interviewed the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Rachel Cleetus about climate complicity for the October 31, 2025,…
Europe Is Regulating AI Hiring. Why Isn’t America?
Take Action Now In 2024, the European Union passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, a landmark law that classifies any AI software used in hiring as…
“Gunboat Diplomacy”: U.S. War In Latin America Feared As Hegseth Launches “Operation Southern Spear”
Take Action Now “…it’s time for those of us here to stand up and say that where we will not support any attempt to bring back the old…