Craig Rosebraugh

[August 25th, 2004] No one can question the activist credentials of this week's recipient of the finger of shame: Craig Rosebraugh.

For many years, Rosebraugh, 32, was the public face of both the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, a position that earned him plenty of attention from the media--and the FBI--when ELF arsonists burned down condos in Vail, Colo., and torched sport utility vehicles at a Chevy dealership in Eugene.

A veteran street protester, last year Rosebraugh published The Logic of Political Violence, a 276-page book whose cover depicts the World Trade Center ablaze. Its thesis? Nonviolence does not work when your opponent--such as auto manufacturers, who "continually give birth to larger gas-guzzling vehicles"--has no conscience.

In the wake of the controversial police shooting of James Jahar Perez in March, Rosebraugh's new revolutionary group, Arissa, scored headlines by putting up fliers that read: "It's about time we put an end to these pigs...."

Not long ago, Rosebraugh added another chapter to his storied career: restaurateur. In December, he opened Calendula, an upscale vegan restaurant in a well-appointed Victorian on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. This new venture, however, has made his radical ideals appear limper than a strand of wheat-free spaghetti.

Apparently, some of Rosebraugh's employees felt that working conditions at Calendula needed improvement. But when they brought him their grievances, they say his response was to fire them.

"His leadership style was 'Do as I say--and just do it,'" says Katharine Atkinson, who before the recent firings was Rosebraugh's floor manager.

Atkinson says she and her fellow workers were idealists and vegetarians attracted by the restaurant's stated mission of "healthy and ethical" business practices and an employee handbook that said that in addition to receiving health care benefits and a gym membership, staff could air grievances "without fear of censure or reprisal."

"I left a job where I was days away from health coverage, because he promised it," she recalls. "I was going to be listened to and well taken care of."

The workers at the new establishment, all experienced restaurant staff, say they went above and beyond the call of duty, contributing free labor to help decorate and market the restaurant as well as free advice and training to Rosebraugh, who had little restaurant experience. Every night, at the end of their shift, they got on their hands and knees to polish the wood floor.

But as the months wore on, Rosebraugh failed to provide the promised health insurance or gym memberships, citing poor business. Meanwhile, he cut back their pay from $8 an hour to $7.05--the minimum wage. Certainly, there were tips, but "that wasn't his money," says Atkinson.

While these cutbacks were understandable given the foundering business, what was not acceptable to his staff was his style: Jimmy Ray Horn, another fired waiter, says Rosebraugh's philosophy was "Like it or leave it."

Rosebraugh also had a double standard in the privileges he provided for himself, says Fara Heath, a manager who left several months ago. Calendula's chefs, exhausted after working lengthy days, requested a sous-chef be hired. Instead, Rosebraugh, a former baker, hired a pastry chef to relieve himself of his own responsibilities, says Heath, adding that "in all the time I was there he never reduced his pay, even as he was reducing others'."

Adding insult to injury, Calendula's staff had been accustomed to free soda and coffee at their previous workplaces. But after several months, former workers say, Rosebraugh sent out an email informing them that this essentially constituted theft.

On July 28, fed up with these conditions, Atkinson and three employees told Rosebraugh they were going on strike. In response, they say, he fired them. This does not violate federal labor law, which has an exemption for businesses grossing less than $500,000, but it probably violates state law, labor lawyers told the Rogue desk.

When the fired workers approached him later in the company of an Industrial Workers of the World union representative in an attempt to negotiate, the anti-cop crusader allegedly invoked the Man:

"You are trespassing right now," the four workers recall Rosebraugh saying. "Leave, or I'm going to call the police."

Rosebraugh, for his part, told the Rogue desk he is being "unfairly targeted." He also purchased an ad in WW (see page 20) saying the terminations were based on "employee misconduct" and that he has not taken a paycheck in five months.

Meanwhile, Rosebraugh appears to have found it difficult to live up to his own standards. He denounced SUVs in his book, and had earlier defended ELF for setting them aflame. But until March, Rosebraugh drove a Toyota 4Runner.

He now commutes in a more efficient Honda hybrid, which former workers say he drives to work every day--though he lives only four blocks away.