LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Ahead of the Station Casinos’ discrimination trial resuming next month, a three-member federal panel found that Red Rock Casino’s “extensive coercive and unlawful misconduct” between September 2019 and June 2020 “stemmed from a carefully crafted corporate strategy.”
In a June 17 decision affirming a 2022 administrative law ruling, the National Labor Relations Board found that “the most important unfair labor practices were planned and executed by Red Rock Casino and Station Casinos’ top management and owners.” The NLRB ordered a Cemex bargaining order for Red Rock Casino Resort Spa to bargain with the Culinary and Bartenders’ Unions. The NLRB also issued a Gissel bargaining order in this case.
The NLRB found that in the weeks prior to the December 17, 2019 union election, Station Casino leadership rolled out benefits such as free family healthcare and an improved 401(k) plan for Red Rock employees, and did so in order to damage the union in the eyes of workers. The NLRB ruled that Red Rock violated the law by threatening to take the benefits away if workers voted to unionize.
“The federal government has ruled that Station Casinos’ Red Rock Casino committed massive labor law violations and that upper executives are implicated in a shameful scheme to defeat union democracy,” said Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union. “This decision affirms what we have been saying for years—that Station Casinos violated the law and the company must bargain with the union because of its unlawful actions that corrupted the prospect for a free and fair union election. Station Casinos needs to stop breaking the law and treat its workers with respect. This company is an outlier in the Nevada gaming industry and it will be held accountable by the federal government. We know that the Fertitta family is part of the Trump MAGA Machine in Nevada, but they, along with Donald Trump, are not above the law.”
A federal Administrative Law Judge has ordered four consecutive days of hearings beginning July 30 in an ongoing Unfair Labor Practice trial over a complaint issued in April 2021, where government attorneys accused Station Casinos of unlawful discrimination, engaging in a scheme to use employee layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine unionizing efforts, and unlawfully withdrawing recognition from the union at Palace and Boulder Station.
“We are reviewing the NLRB’s decision, but the fact that it upheld the findings of its own NLRB hearing officer was not unexpected, and we are likely to appeal,” said a Station Casinos spokesperson. “We continue to believe that the 2019 election result in favor of Red Rock and rejecting the Culinary Union was a fair outcome that reflected the wishes of a majority of the Red Rock Team Members then and reflects it now. Since the Red Rock election, a majority of the team members at each of the Palace Station, Boulder Station, and Sunset Station properties have also rejected the Culinary Union. In fact, we are now bargaining with the Culinary Union only at one single property.”
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