On Monday, we brought you this photo, then asked you to suggest captions for it. Over 4000 votes were cast, and one caption won by the narrowest of margins…
“Firms run a risk of bad publicity when they lay off both labor lawyers and the print shop staff at the same time.”
The runner-up, and the backstory and law firm in question — a firm that has already been shamed once today — after the jump.
The winning caption captured 24% of the vote. Our runner-up got 23.7% of the vote:
“What do we want?”
“Jobs!”
“When do we want ’em?”
“No earlier than January 2011, economic concerns permitting!”
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So what’s the actual story behind the photo? Here’s the original photo (without the firm name redacted):
The protest shown in the photo above took place last week outside of the firm’s D.C. office (as some commenters noticed). A similar protest is taking place outside Seyfarth Shaw’s office in Los Angeles:
So what’s the story? A source at the firm tells us the trouble actually stems from the firm’s Atlanta office, which is moving into a new space next year. The general contractor hired by the landlord to work on the new space is having some disputes with subcontractors.
One of the carpentry subcontractors is non-union. These protesters, who are from the carpenters’ union, are trying to put pressure on Seyfarth, as a prominent tenant, to put pressure on its new landlord, to put pressure on the contractor. It’s a bit convoluted, though one commenter called this early on.
No one was able to explain the meaning of the red umbrella in the protest.
Earlier: ATL Caption Contest Finalists: Shame on You
ATL Caption Contest: Shame on You