{"id":12925,"date":"2014-03-06T10:01:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T18:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12925"},"modified":"2014-03-06T15:27:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T23:27:03","slug":"vegas-behind-the-standoff-sands-another-one-bites-the-dust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/vegas-behind-the-standoff-sands-another-one-bites-the-dust\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegas: Behind the standoff; Sands: Another one bites the dust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Obama\"<\/a>As the Culinary Union<\/strong> heads toward a March 20 strike vote, the culprit behind its stalemate with over a dozen casinos has been identified as the Affordable Care Act<\/strong>. “The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare<\/em>,” said an unusually blunt D. Taylor<\/strong>, president of Unite-Here<\/strong>. “Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won\u2019t be true<\/em>.” Simply put, health plans obtained through collective bargaining don’t qualify for ACA subsidies. So far, MGM Resorts International<\/strong>, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> and the Tropicana Resort & Casino<\/strong> have come to terms but many other on-the-fringe properties like the Riviera<\/strong> and the Stratosphere<\/strong> have not.<\/p>\n

Taylor blames the Obama administration for the impasse and is threatening retribution<\/a> come November. If it’s bad for Culinary employees it’s worse for non-unionized casino workers, who are looking at monthly premiums of $300\/month and upward. (Culinary-represented employees pay no premium.) “In some situations, companies have asked workers to also pay into an HMO,” reports Buzzfeed<\/em>. An HMO? That’s a fate worse than death.<\/p>\n

“What the unions are asking for is government<\/em> and employers to fund their benefits<\/em>,” says consultant\u00a0Robert Laszewski<\/strong> (emphasis added), who characterizes it as double-dipping. Ergo the change in the status quo. Unions are also chapped about a $63\/worker tax on self-funded plans that subsidize care for high-risk patients … but to which the unions are denied access.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought that if we made the case to the agencies dealing with regulations to correct problems that hurt, really destroy, self-funded nonprofit health plans, it would be resolved. That clearly was naive or stupid<\/em>,\u201d fumes Taylor. A White House<\/strong> source says that President Obama<\/strong> heard out Taylor and others “with empathy.”<\/a> However, when Taylor saw proposed fixes in the law, he wrote that administration leaders “were not listening or they simply did not care<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There may be serious payback, come November.\u00a0\u201cIf their health plan gets wrecked<\/em>,” Taylor warns, “why would [employees] then go campaign for the folks responsible for wrecking their health care<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Man overboard!<\/strong> Less than a year after signing a five-year contract with Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, Executive Vice President of Global Operations Chris Cahill<\/strong> has tendered his resignation<\/a>, effective March 31. “Mr Cahill oversees the company\u2019s property operations, corporate marketing and human resources<\/em>,” reports MacauBusiness.com<\/em>, so this would appear to be unrelated to the recent mega-hack of Sands’ Web sites. Whatever the reason, Sands burns through executives at a merciless pace.<\/p>\n

S&G<\/em> predicted that outgoing Sands Bethlehem<\/strong> prexy Robert DeSalvio<\/strong> would be in demand. According to area newspaper The Morning Call<\/em>, he’s joining<\/a> Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s executive team in Massachusetts<\/strong>. That’s got to tweak Sands a bit, but the company seems content to let DeSalvio go his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Culinary Union heads toward a March 20 strike vote, the culprit behind its stalemate with over a dozen casinos has been identified as the Affordable Care Act. “The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[151,7,112,11,95,33,55,12,32,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12925"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12941,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925\/revisions\/12941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}