The battle between Southern Nevada’s Culinary Union and Station Casinos has begun to reverberate beyond Las Vegas.
Democratic presidential candidates are voicing their support for the union, which is fighting to bring management at Station’s Palms Casino Resort to the negotiating table since last spring, when 84 percent of the off-Strip property’s workers voted to unionize in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.
And last week, members of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance joined Culinary picketers outside the Palms.
“As the nation’s largest labor organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander workers, it is especially meaningful for us to be here in support of the Culinary Union, a diverse union with 15 percent AAPI membership, and Nevada’s largest AAPI organization,” said APALA National President Monica Thammarath.
It was the second Culinary demonstration joined by a national labor organization. In June, more than 1,000 convention members of UNITE HERE, the Culinary’s parent union, marched with casino workers outside the Palms, chanting, “No contract! No peace!”
Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted his backing of the Culinary’s fight, saying, “It’s time for the Palms’ billionaire, Trump-supporting owners (Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta) to stop ignoring the law and start negotiating with their workers.”
Sanders is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Another Democratic contender, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, has also tweeted his support for the union.
Workers at six of Station’s more than 10 properties are unionized and fighting for contracts: Boulder Station, Palace Station, Green Valley Ranch, Palms, Sunset Station and, most recently, Fiesta Rancho, which voted to unionize in June.
In May, the NLRB found that the Palms was “failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith” with the union, determining the property was in violation of multiple labor laws.
That ruling currently is being contested in U.S. Appeals Court.
