“A long-running corporate campaign by the Service Employees to organize workers at the food-service multinational Sodexo ended shrouded in secrecy in September.

Sodexo had slapped SEIU with a lawsuit charging that the union’s attempts to pressure the company into a deal to allow organizing amounted to ‘extortion.’ A judge refused in July to dismiss the suit, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

RICO was originally intended to be a tool against organized crime, but corporations have used it against unions since the late ’80s, to stop corporate campaigns that bring pressure on a company from all angles and seek to win concessions by bruising a company’s brand image.”

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