The 147 security guards at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem in Pennsylvania are one step closer to becoming the first group of employees represented by a union in the 25-year history of parent Las Vegas Sands Corporation. The guards voted 90-38 to join the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA).
Las Vegas Sands and its notoriously anti-union chairman, Sheldon Adelson, have been fighting organizing efforts of the guards since 2011, when first approached by a smaller union, the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association (LEEBA). A state court in 2012 issued a ruling ordering the Sands to recognize the guards as a bargaining unit.
Last year, the National Labor Relations Board upheld the state court ruling. The guards, however, voted to switch their affiliation to SPFPA because the larger union is better equipped to sustain the court battles Las Vegas Sands is likely to continue in attempting to avoid the first union representing any of the corporation’s 50,000 employees.
Speaking to the Allentown Morning Call, SPFPA Organizing Director Dwayne Phillips said the union is capable of gaining back the legal ground first won by LEEBA in the organizing effort. “We have a lot of resources and a full-time legal team to handle this,” he said. “We understand the challenge that is ahead of us, but we’re up for it.”
