Question of the Day - 22 May 2021

[Editor's Note: This answer is written by David McKee.]

“Long report” is an understatement concerning the NLRB complaint. “Epic” would be more like it, as it runs to 127 pages.

While the complaint doesn’t entail the entire history of the conflict between Station Casinos and labor unions (beyond allusions to NLRB complaints dating as far back as 2012), it does provide instances — some of which are detailed here — of Station pushing back against various bargaining units even before the pandemic, when business was good and widespread layoffs were unforeseen. However, NLRB Regional Director Cornele Overstreet does accuse Station, in part, of having used the COVID-19 economic crisis as a stalking horse for retaliation against pro-union workers.

An NLRB cover sheet asserts that Station “engaged in a scheme to use layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine unions representing or seeking to represent their employees … During and after a state-mandated closure of gaming establishments in Nevada, Station Casinos began a course of unilateral actions, including laying off employees, terminating employees, implementing new health and safety standards, recalling employees, rehiring employees, and terminating laid off or terminated employees’ recall rights and benefits, all without bargaining with their employees’ unions. Station Casinos allegedly implemented these actions in a selective and discriminatory manner that was calculated to dilute union support among their employees.”

Overstreet wrote that, in light of the casino company's history, “Station Casinos has been found by the Board to have engaged in numerous unfair labor practices, including at other of its facilities, and in Board decisions.”

It should be noted that this is not a final decree and the matter has yet to receive a formal NLRB hearing. Overstreet did all concerned a favor in terms of legal fees by coalescing 66 complaints into a single marathon complaint.

Station was quick to lash back, not only at its longtime adversary, the Culinary Union, but at Overstreet personally, calling him “a willing accomplice” and “complicit.” (Asked for elaboration on this and other statements to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Station politely declined to comment further to LVA.) 

Categorically rejecting myriad allegations made against it, the Station rebuttal stated, “Over the course of a decade, the Company has been under attack by the Culinary Union and has learned that they are willing to say and do anything in an attempt to force our Team Members into their union. … The union is attempting to strip our Team Members of their democratic right to choose whether they want union representation or not. They are mischaracterizing all the great things we have done for our Team Members as a negative, because, as they claim, ‘it undermines the union.’"

Specific charges include the accusations that Station brass told union-repped workers that “employees were silly to think that [the Local Joint Executive Board of Unite-Here, henceforth LJEB] would be able to change rules at Respondent Fiesta Henderson … it had been three years that LJEB has been bargaining and had not been able to get a contract with Respondent Boulder Station and Respondent Palace Station … by soliciting employee complaints and grievances, promised its employees increased benefits and improved terms and conditions of employment to discourage them from supporting LJEB.”

Indeed, although employees at several Station casinos have voted to unionize, not one collective-bargaining agreement has been reached.

Last August 12, a Fiesta Henderson representative allegedly “threatened its employees that they would have to watch their coworkers burn to the ground because they would not be able to help them if they selected LJEB as their collective-bargaining representative.” Workers were then supposedly told to remove their union buttons and were threatened with termination if they continued engage in unionizing. Workers were allegedly ordered to make anti-union signs and lobby their colleagues on behalf of Station management.

At Boulder Station, the company is charged with levying “onerous working conditions,” compulsory drug and alcohol testing, suspensions, and firings of targeted workers. Elsewhere, Station “created an impression among its employees that their union activities were under surveillance by Respondent.” At Texas Station, a company manager “disparaged LJEB in the presence of its employees by telling them that an employee LJEB committee representative was a piece of shit.” The litany of alleged thuggish activities goes on and on, including several instances in which “unspecified reprisals” were supposedly threatened.

Station supposedly went further, according to the NLRB, by initiating deunionization, circulating petitions for the decertification of the union, what is characterized as “more than ministerial assistance.” For instance, a Palace Station manager on September 16, 2020, “promised its employees that their wages would increase, and that Respondent would no longer punish employees for clock-in mistakes, if employees rejected LJEB as their collective-bargaining representative. Inducements allegedly included “a $3,500 cash award,” $400 comps to the Charcoal Steak House, and five days’ vacation. In what would be the pettiest instance of anti-worker retaliation in the complaint, on June 15, 2019, Fiesta Rancho allegedly removed the tip jars from its buffet. (Fiesta Henderson, supposedly not to be outdone, is reported to have rescinded its employee discount at Starbucks.)

Whether true (or legal) or not, Station has evidently been persuasive. Employees at Boulder Station and Palace Station have petitioned to leave the Culinary Union, perhaps frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations — more than 1,600 days and counting. Station also maintains an anti-Culinary website, myscfacts.com, which chronicles every Unite-Here setback and downside.

Referring to the ongoing closures of its two Fiesta-branded properties, the Palms, and Texas Station, the company said to the R-J, “The Union is now asking to be the decider on when we reopen our properties.” Given the many issues facing the Culinary Union, including their pension plan's gross underfunding, they should focus on running their own business before seeking to run ours.”

A Station spokesman continued, “We have proudly stood by our Team Members throughout the pandemic, and they have stood by us, and we will continue to work as hard and fast as we can to help our Team Members through these difficult times. The only undermining going on here is the attempted undermining of justice and employee free choice by a frustrated union and a complicit Regional Director.”

The picture that emerges from the NLRB complaint is of a Station Casinos that did not intend to keep its promise to honor the results on union elections on Station property (except when they went Station’s way) and has been bargaining in bad faith for the past three years.

As for using COVID-19 as a premise, on pages 78-79 of the complaint, Overstreet concludes, “Since about March 13, 2020, Respondent, at all Respondent’s facilities, including by the actions described below … engaged in a scheme to use the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to selectively take the discriminatory actions described below: (1) layoff employees; (2) terminate employees; (3) recall employees; (4) reinstate employees; (5) rehire employees; (6) transfer employees; and/or (7) otherwise manipulate Respondent’s employee complement across it’s facilities.” 

After enumerating endless specifics, Overstreet writes that this was done “because its employees including, but not limited to, the employees named in those paragraphs, joined and assisted LJEB, IUOE, Local 501 and/or Painters, District Council 16, and engaged in concerted activities, and to discourage employees from engaging in these activities.” He concludes that Station’s goa l— and achievement — was to undermine at least three unions as bargaining units. Red Rock Station, in a lengthy appendix is singled out, both for alleged threats of pay cuts to union supporters as well as a long, long list of financial (401k contributions, etc.) and medical (free doctor visits and generic drugs) incentives, many of them quite tempting, especially in the era of COVID.

Station responds, in part, that “another fact the union won’t mention in this context is what Station Casinos has done to support its Team Members throughout the pandemic.” To wit, Station says it has:

* “continued to pay its Team Members throughout the closure, and we were one of the very few companies in Las Vegas to do so”
* “increased benefits, including creating an additional company-paid retirement plan”
* “provided free health insurance”
* “upgraded over 700 part-time Team Members to Full-Time in order to provide benefits”
* “created two free medical centers for all insured Team Members and their families”
* “provided free continual COVID-19 testing; and free on-site COVID-19 vaccinations”

Although the Overstreet report is heavily sourced and fairly damning if taken at face value, there’s not much the NLRB can require Station to do other than inform employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and provide “reasonable access” to employee bulletin boards and such. (NLRB-instigated contempt-of-court proceedings against Station for refusing to bargain with five units of slot technicians might carry more weight.) And should Station continue to dig in against the LJEB and other concerned unions, the impasse will continue to drag on for at least the foreseeable future.