The French Connection

by Phillip Wilson | Feb 11, 2010 | News, Union Avoidance

What are union organizers to do when employees stubbornly refuse to sign up for union representation? How do they combat the “harsh” treatment of having companies hold employee meetings so company management can make their case against unionization? How about fly to Paris and try to embarrass the foreign owners of the company into a neutrality agreement? The Paris-based food service group Sodexo has been the latest to feel the brunt of this Big Labor strategy. Following the playbook used by the Communications Workers of American in their confrontation of Deutsche Telekom (owners of T-Mobile), and the United Food and Commercial Workers against Great Britain’s Tesco (whose Fresh and Tasty Markets in the American southwest have been under attack), the SEIU flew to Paris to mount a publicity campaign against Sodexo. Michael Bride, the UFCW’s deputy organizing director for global strategies explains their actions this way, “We’ve always had relationships with [overseas] unions, but now we’re moving from relationships into campaign mode.” Sodexo says their employees are free to unionize if they so desire, and Tesco and T-Mobile say their employees have shown no interest. Another example of why unions would prefer to eliminate a secret ballot election and resort to high-pressure card-check tactics, whether obtained by legislation, or by neutrality agreement.