Culinary: Station knows it will lose, just stalling to delay paying for benefits

Maria Cristina Alvarado immigrated from Guatemala about 11 years ago and has worked as an assistant cook at the Green Valley Ranch Casino Resort in Henderson for the last 16 years. Alverado and other workers at the casino voted to unionize in November 2017, with 78 percent of the vote, but have since been met with “union-busting” tactics, intimidation, and retaliation, say union organizers.

On Wednesday night, Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto met briefly with Culinary Union Local 226 Secretary Treasurer Geoconda Argüello-Kline and Station Casinos workers to hear about what the union called a campaign of stalling recognition and delaying contract negotiations by Station Casinos and its parent company, Red Rock Resorts.

The Culinary Union has been organizing union drives at Station Casinos since 2011. So far workers have successfully voted to form a union at seven of the company’s properties in Nevada.

Station Casinos executives and spokespersons have said in the past that they would honor union election results. In 2016, Station Casinos president Richard Haskins told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “We have said all along that if a fair and lawful election is held we will abide by the results.”

Read more: https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2019/10/10/culinary-station-knows-it-will-lose-just-stalling-to-delay-paying-for-benefits/