Sunset Station Casino Workers Ask That Culinary Union No Longer Represent Them

Posted on: April 23, 2024, 11:00h. 

Last updated on: April 23, 2024, 11:50h.

Ed Silverstein @casinoorgedsilv Read More

Expertise: Legal, Tribal Gaming.

More than half of the approximately 600 unionized workers at Sunset Station Hotel and Casino reportedly want to drop the Culinary Union Local 226 as their labor representative.

The employees are in the process of signing a decertification petition, the property’s owner, Station Casinos, revealed on Monday. As a result, the company said it withdrew its recognition of the Culinary Union as the workers’ bargaining representative at the Henderson, Nev. property.

Decertification petitions were previously signed in 2020 by a majority of workers at two of the company’s other properties: Boulder Station and Palace Station.

“Just as our team members at Boulder Station and Palace Station did before, our team members at Sunset Station have spoken. Station Casinos respects their decision and certainly appreciates the confidence that our team members have placed in us,” Scott Kreeger, president of Station’s parent company, Red Rock Resorts, said in a statement.

Union Busting Claimed

In a statement also released on Monday, the Culinary Union claimed Station Casinos is engaged in union busting.

“The Culinary Union will file an unfair labor practice charge regarding the withdrawal and will continue to demand that the company negotiate in good faith towards a union contract,” Culinary Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said in the statement.

Union busting is disgusting, and the Culinary Union urges Station Casinos to do better,” he added. “Station Casinos has a long and shameful history of anti-worker behavior, and of losing.”

In 2019, 83% of Sunset Station workers voted to join the Culinary Union. At that point, 437 Sunset Station workers took part in the vote.

“That was the only official vote the property ever had and it was overseen by the federal government. Workers voted in a landslide majority in favor of unionizing,” Pappageorge said.

Election Must Be Held

So far, workers haven’t taken part in a decertification election. That vote can lead to workers officially dropping union affiliation.

Unless a majority of the votes cast in the election are in favor of union representation, the union will be decertified,” according to information posted on the website of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

To hold an election, at least 30% of the unionized workers must sign cards or a petition asking the NLRB to conduct such a vote.

The Culinary Union further claims the withdrawal of union representation at Palace Station and Boulder Station in 2020 was illegal.

Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, represent some 60K workers in Las Vegas and Reno. They include guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, and laundry and kitchen workers.