Jose Oliva, networks director for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said so-called “worker centers” like his group were a “new form of unionism” that would replace craft and industrial unions. He made the comments in an interview with the public radio program Global Nation late last month.

Worker centers are nonprofit groups that act as an alternate form of labor organizing. The most prominent of these are backed by traditional Big Labor groups. ROC United’s board, for example, includes Paul Schwalb, deputy director of food services for the union UNITE HERE.