The Working Lunch Align Public Strategies

We are joined by Sean Kennedy, the EVP of Public Affairs for the National Restaurant Association to reflect on last week’s summiting of Capitol Hill by hundreds of restauant operators during the Assocation’s annual Public Affairs Conference. What did Members of Congress learn from us and what did we learn from them? We’ll discuss.
And in the wake of political blowback, are leading companies shying away from their corporate diversity and inclusion goals or are they merely just talking about them less. We’ll take a look at that.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.

There are some important restaurant states this year with minimum wage and tip credit elimination measures on the November ballot. Ohio is at the top of that list. We are joined by John Barker, CEO of the Ohio Restaurant & Hospitality Alliance as well as Tod Bowen, their head of External Affiars & Government Relations, to level set on their pending measure to both incease the minimum wage to $15/hr and eventually eliminate the tip credit.
We will also review the general state of play of those wage issues across the country as many legislative sessions are close to wrapping up.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.

DoorDash is working with the state of Pennsylvania on a portable benefits pilot program that, if successful, could completely alter the dynamics of the national paid leave and benefits conversation. Is there a way for the industry to seize this opportunity and extricate itself from these reputationally-draining issues? We’ll discuss.
And the media is having a field day in California documenting the peridicted and also unforeseen negative ramifications of the new $20/hr minimum wage for QSR workers. How can the industry best capture this energy and leverage it in similar legislative battles across the country? We’ll take a look.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.

We sit down with Doug Kantor, the general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores, to discuss the biggest story this week - the preliminary settlement of the class action lawsuit brought by a group of retailers almost 20 years ago accusing the credit card companies and their electronic payments systems of being an anti-competitive monopoly. We’ll discuss the merits of the settlement, whether it will be approved by the courts, and what it means for pending legislation in Congres to reign in out-of-control interchange fees.
And California’s minimum wage for fast-food workers is rising to $20/hr next week, the highest statewide wage in the country. But the media coverage this week, somewhat unexpectedly, has been highlighting the impact to operators and the industry and reporting on closures, job losses and other negative ramifications. It’s not been quite the media week the SEIU was hoping for. We’ll dive into that.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.

We sit down with Brennan Duckett, the Director of Technology & Innovation Policy at the National Restaurant Association and discuss the junk fee and service charge issue both federally and its explosion at the state level.
And the industry had a big win at the end of last week when the NLRB’s joint employer rule was thwarted in a Texas courtroom. What’s next for the agency, for the unions and for operators in the near future.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.

The President gave the annual State of the Union address this week and his war on junk fees was front and center - the same week his Council of Economic Advisiors said that restaurants made up close to 10% of all junk fees. Is the industry potentially heading for some major backlash? We’ll discuss.
And the SEC put out their long-awaited climate disclosure regulations and believe it or not, the worst aspects of it were removed. In a major victory for the business community, the reporting requirements around Scope 3 emissions - the carbon footprint of one’s supply chain - were removed. We’ll dig into that.
We’ll talk about those issues and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.