ATL Caption Contest Winner: Shame on You

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!”

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

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