Stop ‘Top Chef’ tactics
It was a happy day yesterday for the four defendants in the “Top Chef” case who were acquitted on charges of attempted extortion. Not such a happy day, however, for those in this community who refuse to believe that vandalism, bomb threats, racist and homophobic slurs and other appalling acts of intimidation have a place on the list of acceptable labor-organizing tactics.
A jury found the four Teamsters not guilty; prosecutors could not prove their behavior rose to the level of a federal crime. But that behavior, some of it caught on video, was reprehensible. And neither the defendants nor their supporters in organized labor should walk away believing that this verdict gives them a green light to engage in this kind of conduct the next time a nonunion production comes to town, or in any other labor-related protest.
That’s a message the Teamsters and other union officials need to hear, if Boston wants to avoid repeating history. And it’s a message that the mayor of this city, as a former leader of organized labor, is in a uniquely powerful position to send.
After all, Mayor Marty Walsh is not shy about condemning the use of hateful language and threats of violence; he did so just this week in a different context. On Monday he warned members of the so-called “alt-right” who plan to assemble in Boston this weekend that they are not welcome. That there is no place for strong-arm tactics in the pursuit of their beliefs. That police will step in if things get out of hand.
There is no moral equivalence, of course, between white supremacists and union officials who believe they are merely asserting their labor rights. But blocking vehicles and terrorizing their occupants is always unacceptable, whether it’s done by those who are demanding employment on a production crew or those who hold the darkest, ugliest opinions about their fellow citizens.
Walsh has the power and the credibility to communicate the message that, this verdict notwithstanding, scaring the hell out of innocent people for the sin of not hiring union labor is unacceptable. We urge him to do so.