Big bucks going to support working folks
The Capitol Grille puts out for its customers but not for its own employees. The restaurant has been the target of protests from disgruntled workers about poor working conditions.
21 foundations have kicked in millions to support higher pay and better working conditions
As America’s labor unions have lost members and clout, new types of worker advocacy groups have sprouted nationwide, and they have started to get on businesses’ nerves — protesting low wages at Capital Grille restaurants, for instance, and demonstrating outside Austin City Hall in Texas against giving Apple tax breaks, according to a report by Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times.
Business groups say they have grown far more concerned about these new organizations since Richard L. Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president, announced last March that organized labor would work closely with these groups, many of which were formed to help immigrant workers whom unions had long overlooked. “For the employer community, it’s a question of what does this grow into,” said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, which commissioned the study on foundation funding. “Judging from Trumka’s remarks, organized labor sees a lot of potential in this model.”
According to that study, millions of dollars have flowed to worker centers from 21 foundations. From 2009 to 2012, it found, the Marguerite Casey Foundation gave $300,000 to the Southwest Workers Union and $300,000 to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The Ford Foundation gave $717,000 to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, $1.15 million to the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and $2.4 million to the Restaurant Opportunities Center.
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