Posts tagged Las Vegas
Culinary Workers Union picket Valley Hospital, set strike date
April 26, 2023 // Hundreds lined the sidewalks holding signs and raising their voices with various chants, including 'no contract, no peace.' The union claims it's been seven years since about 90 members who are cooks, cashiers, kitchen workers, stewards, and in housekeeping have received a pay raise. Culinary Union President Diana Valles said the hospital is attempting to bust the union. "This company is the devil," Valles said. "This company is trying to put these workers lower than the standard in Las Vegas, where they can have good union benefits. They want to get rid of those benefits." The union claims the hospital has fired four Culinary Union members who were leaders in their workplaces, including Betty Williams, a committee leader, and 40-year Culinary Union member.
NEA Keeps Trying to Punish Las Vegas Union for Seceding, and Keeps Failing
April 4, 2023 // CCEA’s staffers belonged to the Employees’ Retirement Plan of the National Education Association, as do most NEA affiliate staffers. When CCEA disaffiliated, it had to also withdraw from NEA’s pension system. The national union then levied a charge for CCEA’s portion of the system’s unfunded liabilities. All of this is normal and proper operating procedure. Where NEA went rogue was in computing that charge. Without getting too far into the weeds, the plan’s actuaries must compute the discount rate — that is, as the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia called it “the rate at which the plan’s assets will grow ‘by the miracle of compound interest’.” The higher the discount rate computed, the less the unfunded liability, and vice versa. The NEA staff pension actuaries computed a discount rate of 5%, and sent CCEA a bill for $3,246,349. The local union thought this excessive and, as required by law, brought the dispute to arbitration.
Pipefitters Union Hit with Federal Charge for Illegal Retaliatory Fine against Non-Union Las Vegas Worker
March 10, 2023 // An employee in Las Vegas, Nevada, has filed federal charges against the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (UA) union Local 525, in response to union officials illegally threatening to fine him. The employee, David Webb, chose to exercise his right to work during a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-sanctioned election. The case was filed at the National Labor Relations Board Region 28 by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys to challenge his retaliatory fines by the union officials. Webb, a Universal Plumbing and Heating Inc. employee, has not been a union member since 2017. Despite this, UA union officials initiated internal union disciplinary charges against him, resulting in an attempt to levy a fine of $4,999 against him for exercising his right to participate in a NLRB-sanctioned election, including as an official election observer.
Metro officer asks US Supreme Court to hear suit over union fees
December 22, 2022 // Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said it will take months to know if the Supreme Court will hear the lawsuit. He said that since the 2018 ruling, unions have been using restriction periods like the one in Metro’s collective bargaining agreement to determine when someone can resign from a union and stop paying dues. The petition argued that the 20-day resignation period was enacted in a new collective bargaining agreement from July 2019, and that the only form she signed authorizing dues deductions was in 2006.
First Orlando, Now Vegas: Convention-Center Labor Strikes Authorized
December 14, 2022 // For event planners seeking to avoid a similar labor crisis that could derail their events, veteran events-industry attorney Joshua L. Grimes, Esq., of Grimes Law Office in Philadelphia, offers these thoughts: “If your event is coming up soon, I think it’s appropriate to ask the host facility specifically how they intend to handle things if the union members strike. The answer given to groups is usually, ‘Don't worry, we're going to take care of it.’ But without a labor agreement in place, I would say it's reasonable to ask the in-house catering company for a detailed backup plan. And if a group does not have confidence in what it hears, the group could demand the right to bring in its own caterer” or to use other options such as food trucks. Further, “due diligence requires that a group not wait until a few days before the event to start asking questions. There's a legal doctrine called ‘anticipatory breach’ that says a group may not need to wait until the last minute to see if foodservice can be provided at an acceptable level of quality. If it's clear that the in-house caterer won't be able to perform its contractual obligations, the group may be able to cancel the foodservice contract before the event starts and proceed to make alternate arrangements to get F&B for its guests” at an acceptable level of both product quality and service quality.
Las Vegas trash collectors could strike if deal not reached soon
May 19, 2022 // In December, more than 400 sanitation workers employed by Republic Services in Orange County, Calif., went on strike, though it lasted only about a week before a new contract was agreed upon.
Red Rock Casino Slot Technicians Blast Regional Labor Board Ruling Trapping Them Under Unpopular Union, Appeal Decision
May 11, 2022 // Barrios’ attorneys show that the majority of the union’s accusations describe alleged employer malfeasance concerning bargaining units other than Barrios’. The Request for Review points out that, by the Region’s logic, “any employer’s unfair labor practice could block any decertification in any of its other units, no matter how remote.”
At Ninth Circuit, Las Vegas Police Officer Defends First Amendment Right to Stop Funding Unwanted Union
April 22, 2022 // Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) officer Melodie DePierro is challenging an “escape period” enforced by officials of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association (PPA) union as an infringement of her constitutional rights recognized in the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. DePierro ended her PPA membership in 2020.
Red Rock Casino Slot Technicians Overwhelmingly Request Vote to Remove IUOE Union
March 22, 2022 // “Las Vegas union officials likely believe they can violate workers’ free choice rights without any consequences, as it seems ‘the union house always wins’ at NLRB Region 28,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Mr. Barrios, Ms. Teske, and Mr. Stallings are standing up for themselves and their coworkers by opposing unpopular union bosses. Foundation attorneys will fight to make sure their voices are heard even though the deck may seem to be stacked against independent-minded workers.”
9th Circuit sides with union in fight with Las Vegas casino
November 30, 2021 // A federal appeals court has upheld a U.S. judge’s ruling in Nevada requiring Station Casinos’ Red Rock Casino to bargain with the culinary and bartenders unions.