Latino Las Vegas Casino Workers Fight For Unionization

By Geoconda Arguello-Kline, President of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226

In the neon desert of Las Vegas, Wall Street bankers have teamed up with local billionaires to deny thousands of casino workers – many of them Latino immigrants – their legal right to organize into unions. Station Casinos workers are seeking to realize their “Las Vegas Dream”: job security, free healthcare, a pension, ability to buy a home, and decent wages that will one day make it possible to send your kids to college.

Strong unions have made the “Las Vegas Dream” a reality for 60,000 service workers on the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas. But the Las Vegas Dream is under attack by Station Casinos, a vehemently anti-union company owned by Wall Street giants Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan as well as the billionaire Fertitta brothers, who also own the cage fighting promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Station Casinos has 13,000 employees and is the third largest private employer in Las Vegas. Thirteen of its executives and insiders – one-tenth of 1% of the company’s workforce — paid themselves $660 million by mortgaging the company’s assets in a leveraged buyout in 2007. Then, to cut costs, the company outsourced whole departments (reservations, uniform rooms) and restaurants and coffee shops. In two years, the company fired more than 2,800 workers, or 20% of its workforce. For the remaining workers, they lost all company contributions to their retirement accounts, healthcare costs skyrockets, and they’ve not had a raise in over four years.

Station Casinos workers have had enough. Housekeepers, bartenders, cocktail servers, cooks, dishwashers, food servers and porters are standing up against the company’s unfair treatment of the rank-and-file. In February, 2010, they publicly demanded the company to let them organize freely and decide for themselves whether to unionize (See www.WorkerStation.org.)

In response, Station Casinos has launched a vicious anti-union campaign. Its anti-union campaign has overwhelmingly affected Latino workers.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed complaints against the company and put it on trial in October last year. On September 22, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Geoffrey Carter issued a 151-page recommended decision against Station Casinos. He found that the company broke federal labor 87 times, making it the worst violator of labor law in the history of Nevada gaming. He also recommended a broad cease-and-desist order.

While the company itself claims 26% of its workforce is Latino or Hispanic, 78% of the 87 labor law violations found by the judge involve Latino workers. Moreover, eight of the ten worker organizers the company has fired so far are Latino. (Three have been brought back to work after charges were filed with the NLRB.)

Station Casinos workers have received support from Latino, labor and other allies such as the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. We are confident that Station Casinos workers will prevail in their fight for the Las Vegas Dream and a better future for themselves and their families. They will soon enjoy the same respect and dignity on the job that all Americans deserve.

Geoconda Arguello-Kline lives in Nevada and is President of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226.

Subscribe today!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Must Read