Workers at Bohemian Grove, one of the country’s oldest and most secretive men’s retreats, complain that they are underpaid and overworked, especially during the two weeks in July when some of the country’s most powerful men descend on its forest camp in northern California , according to a recent lawsuit.
Campers, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and a host of past presidents and billionaires, descend on the camps, which are spread over 2,700 acres in Monte Rio, California. Most of the activities revolve around drinking and eating, said one of the workers, known as the “valet” at the camp.
“These guys, they don’t want that college experience to go away,” Anthony Gregg said in an interview with AirMail published Saturday.
“Now they are [just] have more money and better alcohol.”
Gregg is one of three plaintiffs named in a class-action lawsuit filed in June in US District Court in Northern California against the Bohemian Club, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that operates more than 100 exclusive camps.
A bonfire at one of a series of camps in Bohemian Grove, a top-secret retreat for the country’s richest and most powerful men. Facebook/Bohemian Grove
In addition to the low wages, “defendants continued to work together to devise methods to avoid paying payroll and overtime taxes,” according to the legal filing.
Some employees said they were regularly paid “under the table” so the Bohemian Club could avoid paying payroll taxes and workers’ compensation insurance, the filing said.
The Bohemian Club, founded in 1872 by a group of journalists, writers and actors, earned more than $4.5 million in 2020, according to its most recent federal tax filing, which also shows total assets of more than $38 million.
Visitors on a tour of one of the camps that make up Bohemian Grove in California where workers have launched a class action lawsuit to demand higher wages.Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
“We have reviewed the allegations and it is clear that the allegations contained in the lawsuit were brought by individuals who were never employed by the Bohemian Club and therefore the Club should not be a party to this action,” the Bohemian Club said in a statement in June.
Since 1878, the Grove has hosted the nation’s most powerful men, including former presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, IBM founder Thomas Watson Jr. and media mogul John Kluge, once the richest man in the country.
AirMail, a newsletter founded by former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, described days at the Grove as filled with booze “and the kind of parties learned in fraternity houses and flourished by men whose careers depended on hospitality.”
An early photo of the Bohemian Grove in California where elite men spent two weeks in the woods to get drunk, according to a recent article.
The online outlet notes that the camp’s must-have specialty cocktail is Nembutal, made with hot chocolate laced with a horse tranquilizer, which “can make you lose control of your bowels and bladder.”
“Blackout drunkenness is not uncommon at Bohemian Grove,” the report continued.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
