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
A Hell Made for the Innocent: Of Monsters, Media, And The Gentle Language Of Genocide
July 30, 2025
Take Action Now Consider these words, from a Washington Post headline: “Gazans are dying of hunger.” That’s like saying a gunshot victim “died from…
Trump Wants To Stop Regulating Greenhouse Gases Entirely
July 30, 2025
Take Action Now The decision could have far-reaching consequences — including for the fossil fuel industry, which may find itself exposed to a flood…
‘MORAL INJURY’: Murdered In Gaza, Disappeared In America
July 30, 2025
Take Action Now It’s the concept that violence and injustice have more victims than the directly victimized. And can affect how we function and…
A Putz At Fascism, Too! Trump’s Feral, Libertarian Despotism Ordains Oligarchy, Not Centralized Dominance Or Unifying Vision
July 29, 2025
Take Action Now Trumpist extremism turns out to be a particularly noxious, authoritarian brew better called “oligarchic, authoritarian…