Controversy
| This section relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject. Please add citations from reliable and independent sources. |
| This section's references may not meet Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources. Please help by checking whether the references meet the criteria for reliable sources. |
In April 2010, The National Labor Relations Board regional office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina issued a federal complaint against a local SEIU chapter for maintaining an “annual objection” policy designed to force nursing home workers into full union dues payments against their will.
In June 2003 SEIU was found guilty of violating security workers' rights and ordered to pay back dues and fees to over 400 workers.
In December 2010, SEIU agreed in a settlement to stop trying to prevent workers who do not support its activities from coming to work at Morehouse College dining venues operated by Sodexo. The settlement also forces SEIU to post notice that it will not "restrain or coerce" Sodexo employees. According to Sodexo, SEIU leads a smear campaign to spread misinformation about Sodexo in an attempt to drive out UNITE HERE and other unions that have historically operated within the food service industry.
Sodexo USA filed a civil lawsuit against SEIU under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act on March 17, 2011. In the complaint, Sodexo alleges that SEIU engaged in blackmail, vandalism, trespassing, harassment, and lobbying law violations, referring to the "Clean Up Sodexo" campaign as "old-fashioned, strongarm tactics" and SEIU behavior as "egregious" and "illegal." This suit was settled in September 2011; the parties withdrew their respective charges and lawsuits and SEIU terminated its public campaign focused on Sodexo.
During a drive to organize 10,000 healthcare workers in November 2009, SEIU was accused of ballot rigging and using intimidation to persuade workers to vote in SEIU instead of the National Union of Healthcare Workers as their representative.
Aramark employees from Johns Hopkins University, Towson University, Morgan State University and Coppin State University, as well as students from all four universities, participated in a protest alleging SEIU was acting to prevent a fair employee representation by the union of their choice.
The SEIU's tactics were featured in a book entitled The Devil At My Doorstep chronicling the 3 year battle between the union and an Indiana based building services company.
Local chapters of SEIU have expressed discontent with the landmark Citizens United decision. Despite this disposition, they have exercised the rights that the decision gave them, and have used funds for campaigning purposes—counterbalancing corporate spending in elections. However, because of the recent Supreme Court decision Knox v. SEIU, union spending and fundraising power has been diminished relative to corporate power.
Read more about this topic: Service Employees International Union
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)