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Sodexo Slaps SEIU Cockroaches With RICO Suit

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  March 18th, 2011 at 02:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Imagine being at a dinner event and having your plate served with (plastic) cockroaches scattered over the food. Envision going to a hospital with a loved one only to be confronted with the hint that the hospital food is infested with bugs, flies, mold, and rat droppings. Pretty disgusting, right? Well, imagine how disgusting it is that these tacticss are due to a union’s efforts to unionize the “offending” company’s employees. At least, that’s the allegations being made by the French-owned company Sodexo.

For more than a year, Sodexo has endured being targeted by the SEIU. Being on the SEIU hit list for the company’s refusal to turn its workforce over to the purple behemoth, the SEIU has (allegedly) engaged in rallies, unlawful retaliation against Sodexo employees, as well as other, equally ugly, tactics such as:

  • Throwing plastic roaches onto food being served by Sodexo USA at a high profile event;
  • Scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies;
  • Lying to interfere with Sodexo USA business and sneaking into elementary schools to avoid security;
  • Violating lobbying laws to steer business away from Sodexo USA, even at the risk of costing Sodexo USA employees their jobs; and
  • Harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing.

Now, Sodexo appears to have had enough.

On Thursday, Sodexo filed a civil lawsuit against the SEIU under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (more commonly known as RICO).

According to Sodexo’s press release:

Sodexo USA today filed a civil lawsuit against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other defendants under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, to stop the illegal campaign of extortion that the SEIU has been waging in the U.S. for over a year.

“This is about protecting the Company’s business and the rights of our employees to vote freely about union representation,” said Robert Stern, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Sodexo USA.  ”We work constructively with unions every day but the SEIU has crossed the line by breaking the law. We will not tolerate the SEIU’s tactics any longer. Their campaign jeopardizes our Company and our employees’ jobs, and ultimately would rob our employees of their right to vote.”

Sodexo USA has filed the lawsuit seeking to halt the SEIU’s extortionate threats and barrage of unlawful tactics. The complaint alleges acts of SEIU blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from Sodexo USA and harm the company.

[snip]

…the SEIU has engaged in a vicious campaign to force the Company into broadly recognizing the SEIU to the exclusion of other unions without allowing its employees in the U.S. to exercise their right to vote for or against the SEIU in a federally supervised secret ballot election.

According to Sodexo, the complaint, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, seeks an injunction against the SEIU and its locals and executives, as well as monetary damages to be determined by the court.

There’s nothing like shining light on a cockroach to make it run. It appears Sodexo is ready to do that with the SEIU.

_________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

X-posted.

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Photo credit: Emrank

COMMENTS

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  • acat

    This is one point where I’d like to see “fishing expedition” discovery.

    Don’t use a flashlight to scare these roaches, use as much sunlight and as many mirrors as possible. Archimedes had the right idea.

    Mew

  • lineholder

    how many American-based options could actually have the same option in responding to SEIU tactics but haven’t done so out of fear????

    Maybe this suit by Sodexo could be a turning point for other companies.

    • lineholder
  • alvin691

    The world has indeed turned upside-down,

    • acat

      Well, can’t continue with the quote, it’s not even close to pg-13.

      But .. yeah. The French government may be insane (although less so of late) but the French people have guts, when push comes to shove.

      Mew

  • flannery

    Even though I believe that SEIU will not participate in the discovery process without much prudging first.

    Now its time for the criminal RICO case to put the bastards in jail.

  • tulsajack

    It’s about time one of the victims of the SEIU hit these vicious thugs with an anti-racketeering lawsuit. So many videos show SEIU goons attacking and intimidating peaceful citizens, and now we have documented evidence of how they routinely operate behind the scenes. Where will the ‘Bamster be in all this? Under the table with his thumb in his ear, pretending not to applaud, as usual.

  • powertothepeople

    drive them into bankruptcy.

  • momma

    Thanks for the coverage, LUR. A story to make my Friday…I hope it gets linked far and wide, so much that the lefty media can’t ignore it!

  • donnybrooke

    Thanks for the good news, LUR! Reading through some of the cases in which RICO has been used, this seems a good move.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act

    However, can they find a judge that will actually allow this suit to proceed? That’s the important question.

    • congressworksforus

      I am sure he’d love to take the case.

      http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2010/12/breaking-virginia-judge-rules-obamacare-unconstitutional/

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    hOpefully the US companies will follow suit, so to speak.

  • taxpayer1234

    Once again, the American people have to do what its government refuses to do.

  • gumbeaux

    Since the wicked witch of the west got into power the labor unions have become more ‘entitled’ to do as they please. This was bolstered up by the mighty lord Obama. The unions have violated the decency of our election process and our daily lives causing higher prices, taxes and used their thuggery to increase their numbers. Wisconsin said no to public employee unions. They have been slapped with a nuisance court order from a pro-union judge. Other states are following suit. Corporate American needs to jump on the band wagon as well. These unions are good for pumping up the numbers in elections, possibly even committing fraud in Harry Reid’s re-election. They provide a large sum of misused member funds to throw money around with the politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle. It is time they got cut down to size and exposed as the cock roaches that they are.

  • davesinsanantonio

    knew that Holder and Co. would never pursue a criminal case against any union who had contributed to Obummer so heavily. But, in less than two years we should have a new, hopefully honest this time, attorney general. If so, there should be lots more criminal cases against SEIU and their ilk. Also, hopefully, against more voter intimidaters etal.

  • etlib

    It would seem to me the SEIU would be using live roaches. (Second part of comment left unstated)

  • uncle_fweddy

    Are photropic and thus will scatter when you shine a light on them. This–and the criminal federal statutes–might be a very effective weapon against the unions and other coercive thuggery.

    I’LL decide whether or not to join a union, not the union, and turn over tribute to them, that will be used to purchase legislators’ cooperation in enacting laws with which I do not agree.

  • kenchely

    Labor unions have for far too long operated on the theory that the laws do not apply to them. An anti-Clinton demonstrator in Philadelphia and an anti-Obama protestor in St. Louis were beaten up–on videotape in both cases!–and Democratic district attorneys in those locations declined to prosecute those doing the beating.

    Why? Because those doing the beating were doing so on behalf of their unions, and every Democrat knows that his job depends on propitiating the unions–on giving them whatever they want, no matter how outrageous, and on not prosecuting them when they engage in criminal activity. If a right-wing group had conducted itself in Madison the way the unions did, they would all have been hauled off to jail, with nothing but applause from the mainstream media.

    Somewhere along the line, the slogan “social justice” has to stop being a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.

  • myron_j_poltroonian

    Yes he will. Against France and Sodexo.

  • finnmccuill

    Holder and his tribe are CROTUS’ errand boys, as always, but apparently CROTUS is the protege’ of “shower-cap” boy Qaddafi. Easy! All he has to do is ship shower-cap boy Qaddafi a few millions of American dollars. They’ll fit right in the storage pocket of his (!) golf bag, which is why CROTUS is swanning around the Libyan golf courses with “shower-cap” boy Qaddafi right now, and avoiding American and other journalists.

    Let’s see: first we need Air Force One, fully staffed, plus a complete duplicate, in case of some “new black panther” not getting the ball-bat he wanted, plus four or five more C-5A size aircraft, to carry all the armored vehicles, personnel, equipment, supplies, and equipment for a mission of un-specified length, of indeterminant destination, and no indication of hostility level.

    Bet the uniformed services love these “picnics”! ! The entire American military establishment is on standby, so CROTUS can go play patty-cake with Muammar Qaddafi! If you were an inner-city unemployable like CROTUS, wouldn’t you be having a party?