Buona Beef Family Members Arrested After Protester Clash
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BEVERLY — The Buona Beef franchise is doing harm command after a viral video showed members of the Buonavolanto family unit harassing union members and spraying protesters with a garden hose.
On Tuesday in suburban Berwyn, Buona Beef's Joseph J. Buonavolanto and Jim Buonavolanto confronted union picketers who were criticizing their family's business for not hiring matrimony workers.
"F------ losers, dude," 1 of the Buonavolantos can be heard maxim to wedlock members in one of two viral videos captured outside the chain's west suburban restaurant.
The Buonavolantos were charged with battery in the incident later on a picketer was struck on the hand, according to Crain's Chicago Business.
The Buonavolanto family, which founded the franchise more xxx years ago, issued an apology for the behavior. However, six members of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, Local 134 stood outside Buona Beef's Beverly location Thursday at 10633 Due south. Western Ave. handing out flyers request customers to, "Show Your Back up — Please Do Non Patronize Buona Beef."
Donald Finn, business organisation manager and financial secretary for IBEW, Local 134, was in Beverly Thursday and said he saw the video. He was shocked by the style the business concern owners handled themselves and believes the brothers were trying to intimidate spousal relationship picketers.
"I simply don't call back in that location'southward any type of use for that stuff in this day and age," Finn said.
On Friday, Finn likewise provided additional video footage of Buona Beef employees once again spraying union workers with water. This fourth dimension, Buona Beef workers gear up upwardly sprinklers along Western Avenue where picketers had settled in Beverly.
"You similar to call names? You like to intimidate u.s., similar you intimidate our guests?" 1 of the men from Buona Beef says in the video shot outside the Beverly restaurant.
Laurie Cairns, a spokeswoman for the Buona Companies, did not offering an explanation for the incident in Beverly, other than to say that the chain is "very meticulous about their landscaping."
Equally for the confrontation in Berwyn, Cairns said the Joseph and Jim Buonavolanto were washing away gasoline from that was spilled by union members operating a nearby generator. She also said the company is unclear on what the unions are specifically demanding.
"We just want them to pay a fair wage for the area," said Finn, whose flyers call out Buona Beef's hiring of SME Technologies.
Finn said it was the use of such not-union labor in Buona Beef's construction of new restaurants Downtown as well as in southward suburban Frankfort, Homewood and Oak Lawn that initially drew the spousal relationship pickets. Simply he besides hopes that restaurant workers in the existing locations are existence paid fairly.
Meanwhile, an employee at the Beverly Buona Beef stood near the archway to the bulldoze-thru handing out flyers Thursday that said the South Side location was built with 100 percent union labor and included a list of contractors.
Ii big banners were also erected outside the Western Artery location declaring the business concern' dear of Beverly and dedication to union labor.
Employees in Beverly referred all questions to corporate executives, and this amends was posted on the concatenation'south website Thursday:
"Members of our family did non uphold our values when responding to a marriage demonstration that disrupted our business. What started out as a peaceful discussion turned into an unprofessional exchange. This was an isolated incident that occurred in the estrus of the moment. It is not representative of the way our family does business organization."
In the videos from Berwyn, the Joseph and Jim Buonavolanto knock down the matrimony's signs and walk away with a handful of the marriage's flyers. In another video, the pair return to "make clean the sidewalk," spraying water near the wedlock members.
The heated exchange led past the Buonavoltanos also includes a picketer being mocked for a tattoo that reads, "Pride."
"If you worked hard, maybe yous'd take a shot at being successful in life. Instead of beingness a f---ing thief," one of the two men tin exist heard maxim in this video.
Wedlock members packed upwardly a giant, inflatable rat Th exterior Buona Beef in Beverly. The picketers were upset by a viral video showing a confrontation betwixt union members and executives of the chain. [DNAinfo/Howard A. Ludwig]
Other picketers in Beverly were suspicious of Buona Beef's catering truck and trailer being parked in front of the restaurant Thursday, blocking the expanse where they had previously prepare up their demonstration which included a large, inflatable rat (too known as Scabby).
In the wake of the incidents, the Facebook page Buona We've Gotta Beef was created. The viral videos out of Berwyn were also posted on several Beverly Facebook pages — domicile to many union members. Most of the comments supported the picketers.
Many commenters vowed to cold-shoulder Buona, including Jeannie of nearby Evergreen Park. She asked that her last name be withheld.
"I saw the video on my friend's page. I volition not exist going there as a patron ever once again. They treated that man like a canis familiaris. It was disgusting," she said.
Buona Beef opened its Beverly location March 21, 2016. Information technology was the chain's first Chicago restaurant and kicked off a five-year expansion plan for the chain. Cairns argued that union picketers take also acted aggressively towards customers since the pickets began.
Ald. Matt O'Shea (19th) said he was working to fix a meeting with marriage leaders and executives at the Buona Companies prior to the video being released. Since then, tensions accept spiked.
"There is no excuse for what went on in that video," O'Shea said Friday afternoon.
He added that the Buona Beef in Beverly was indeed built with union workers. And he understands that the union'southward grievance with the visitor is with restaurants beingness built with non-union labor elsewhere. Still, he's eager for some sort of solution.
"My hope is that maybe next week as people accept cooled downward a scrap, we can bring people together to effort to talk this out," O'Shea said.
Source: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170818/beverly/buona-beef-union-videos-hose-boycott-berwyn
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