Sodexo the institutional food service giant has filed  suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against the Service Employees International Union(SEIU). The  SEIU is accused by Sodexo, in US district court Virginia of a “strong-arm” scheme in it’s effort to unionize 80,000 non-union employees. The SEIU says the suit is a bogus attempt to draw attention away from Sodexo’s anti-union activity.

“…It is not about which union represents Sodexo workers, but about whether Sodexo workers can bargain collectively at all,”

Sodexo’s RICO complaint claims

“This case is not about traditional union organizing. It is about a group of powerful labor organizations that have abandoned the traditional legal framework for organizing employees into unions, in favor of old-fashioned, strong-arm tactics to get what they want,”

   

Speaking of strong-arm rackets, the old established law firm handling the suit for Sodexo is Hunton & Williams (since 1901!) has been up to some other interesting projects lately.

They have found themselves under intense scrutiny since their questionable plans for corporate clients were outed by “Anonymous” the online entity. The plan made public was an attempt to profit from channeling funds for corporate clients (Bank of America, US Chamber of Commerce were named) to investigative security companies. The ultimate aim was discrediting anti corporate critics and thus to disarm potential problem makers.   

Hunton & Williams stood to be the channel for $2 million in monthly subcontractor payments […]build a lucrative practice around investigating critics such as U.S. Chamber Watch and WikiLeaks, and it worked with three private security companies in a partnership they called “Team Themis,” the e-mails say.

Lawyers saw “potential for huge gains” as a result of liberal anger, one security employee wrote in an e-mail.

After being exposed Hunton & Williams claims to have ended it’s involvement in the project.

HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies  the firms approached by Hunton & Williams as part of  “Team Themis” are now  under Congressional scrutiny   A dozen congressman including Vermont Congressman Peter Welch signed a letter suggesting investigation. The letter says in part  

HBGary Federal emails also revealed that the security contractors along with Hunton & Williams had also “planned a campaign to sabotage and discredit critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,”  as well as the trade union federation Change to Win, the Center for American Progress and other organizations