Officials at the National Labor Relations Board have ordered a group of Las Vegas casinos to bargain with a union even though the union lost its election, finding that the company’s illegal behavior spoiled the vote.
The decision against Station Casinos marks the first time the labor board has issued what’s known as a Cemex order, so named for a landmark case it ruled on last year. The new process makes it more likely that employers who break the law during an organizing campaign will be required to recognize the union regardless of the election’s outcome.
In this case, the board found Station Casinos had committed “extensive coercive and unlawful misconduct,” part of a “carefully crafted corporate strategy intentionally designed at every step to interfere with employees’ free choice” to choose a union or not.
Workers at three Station hotel-casinos ― Red Rock, Boulder Station and Palace Station ― voted 627 to 534 against joining the Culinary Workers Union in 2019. But the board, which referees private-sector labor disputes, found that the company broke the law several times by making threats, punishing union supporters and promising new benefits so that employees would reject the union.
“The new process makes it more likely that employers who break the law during an organizing campaign will be required to recognize the union regardless of the election’s outcome.”
Managers committed “serious pervasive unlawful misconduct” well before employees filed for a union election, and continued such misconduct at least six months after the vote had concluded, the board found.
In the most colorful example, two days before the vote Station served workers hundreds of free steaks that had been branded with the words, “VOTE NO!” The board members found the company did this because food quality had become a “top employee concern,” and it wanted to show that the food would improve if the casinos stayed non-union.
Employees had dined on steaks at the free employee buffet before, but only on special occasions like a casino anniversary, according to case testimony. And the steaks had never been branded.
They also ordered Station Casinos to remove photos of workers from an anti-union website the company created, and to reinstate, with backpay, a union supporter who had been fired.
Station Casinos can appeal the decision to federal court and challenge the order to bargain with the union. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Under the Cemex standard, when workers demonstrate they have clear majority support for a union, the company can either voluntarily recognize the union or ask the NLRB to conduct an election to determine if it’s what workers really want.
But if the company goes on to break the law in a way that warrants throwing the election results out, the board can order the company to start bargaining with the union even if the union lost the vote. In that case, a “rerun” election would not be held.
The board has said it hopes this process would discourage employers from breaking the law in the first place, since by trying to suppress a union with unfair labor practices, they run the risk of having to negotiate with the union anyway. As a former board member told HuffPost last year, the Cemex standard is a “BFD” because it should lead to “less union-busting.”
The Culinary Workers Union has been battling Station Casinos for years. Known as a kingmaker in Nevada politics, the powerful local union represents casino and hotel workers throughout the Vegas Strip and downtown. Station Casinos, owned by the wealthy brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, has been one of a few notable non-union holdouts.
The union did not immediately comment on the ruling issued Monday. But in a statement in April, it accused Station Casinos of having a “shameful history of anti-worker behavior.”