Thursday, May 06, 2021
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David Levesque, the owner of the Brewed Awakening chain and leader of a large group of Rhode Island restaurants, has alleged that Governor Dan McKee is refusing to support the group’s legislation that would push workers off unemployment and back to work.
“We worked hard trying to get this bill passed so we could get people off unemployment. The Governor is not going to support our bill, he made this very clear,” Levesque wrote in an email to approximately 30 restaurant owners.
The restaurant group has been negotiating for weeks with the McKee administration.
“Yesterday I had a call with Matt Weldon, DLT director, he pointed out that the bill included part-time workers, and this was a problem. I agreed to pull it out. He then wanted to cap to $39,000,000 so only 10,000 people could sign up, I loved the idea and believed it would put a sense of urgency into the workforce that is sitting idle on unemployment and get them to move quic