Cintas Alleges Extortion in New RICO Lawsuit Against Union Organizations.CINCINNATI -- Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on : CTAS CTAS Center-TRACON Automation System CTAS Create Table As Select (Oracle database) CTAS County Technical Assistance Service CTAS Cornell Taiwanese American Society CTAS Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale ) filed today a lawsuit under the federal and state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Statutes (RICO RICO n. . ) against the labor unions UNITE HERE UNITE HERE is a labor union with more than 450,000 active members in the United States and Canada, predominantly in the hotel, food service, apparel and textile manufacturing, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. , International Brotherhood of Teamsters Teamsters large, powerful union of U. S. truckers. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 2703] See : Labor and Change to Win, alleging extortion related to the unions' continued attacks that are part of a nationwide organizing drive that is now entering its sixth year. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , and consolidates a related defamation lawsuit that Cintas filed in 2004 and which was proceeding in an Ohio state court. Cintas alleges that, for the last five years, UNITE HERE and the other labor organizations have carried on a campaign of negative, untrue and unlawful attacks against Cintas in an effort to extort To compel or coerce, as in a confession or information, by any means serving to overcome the other's power of resistance, thus making the confession or admission involuntary. To gain by wrongful methods; to obtain in an unlawful manner, as in to compel payments by means of threats of concessions from the company that would enable UNITE HERE and the Teamsters to become the official bargaining representatives for Cintas employees without those employees ever being able to freely decide whether they want a union and if so, which union. The company has long maintained that such rights belong to each individual employee, and has continually reiterated its commitments to protect its employees' rights. The RICO complaint further alleges that UNITE HERE's and the other labor organizations' conduct is and continues to be, a campaign of extortion which includes interference with Cintas's existing and prospective business relationships, deliberate attacks to artificially depress the value of Cintas's stock, and other unlawful conduct. The New York lawsuit also includes several claims against UNITE HERE for violation of Cintas's trademark rights, including improper use of Cintas's trade name and trademark in various websites designed to further the unions' extortion and reputation-destruction campaign. The defamation claim details a 2004 news release issued by UNITE HERE - which was intentionally made to appear to have been issued by the U.S. government - accusing the company of "widespread and major" labor law labor law, legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class of workers dependent on wages as their source of income. violations. The union later acknowledged that the NLRB played no role in the issuance of the press release. About Cintas Corporation: Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio “Cincinnati” redirects here. For other uses, see Cincinnati (disambiguation). Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. , Cintas Corporation provides highly specialized services to businesses of all types throughout North America. Cintas designs, manufactures and implements corporate identity uniform programs, and provides entrance mats, restroom supplies, promotional products, first aid and safety products, fire protection services and document management services to approximately 800,000 businesses. Cintas is a publicly held company traded over the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol CTAS, and is a Nasdaq-100 company and component of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The Company has achieved 38 consecutive years of growth in sales and earnings, to date. An electronic version of the complaint and attachments is available on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) website which can be accessed by clicking on the following link: https://pacer.login.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl?court_id=00idx. You may also email a request for a copy of the complaint to trainerh@cintas.com. |
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