Union, Station playing to hype

It's too bad the leadership of Culinary Local 226 and Ultimate Fighting Championship can't stand each other.

They would make a heck of a tag team.

UFC President Dana White can make his organization's mixed martial arts matchups sound like one of the legendary Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight boxing championship fights.

Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor can transform an administrative labor law judge's ruling into the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 landmark civil rights decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

It's all in the hype.

Take last week's over-the-top news conference/union rally hosted by the Culinary to discuss the unfair labor practices ruling against Station Casinos. A judge allowed 83 claims out of an original 400 allegations against the company to heard by the National Labor Relations Board.

Station Casinos executives termed the remaining charges as "technical violations" (for example, a manager wrongly told a worker to remove a union button). The company's labor attorney laughed off the remaining charges as "not even worth the price admission."

The Culinary took a different approach, which was expected.

Since the spring, the union has mounted a campaign against Station Casinos bosses Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta, using the brothers' majority ownership in the lucrative UFC as a punching bag. The UFC has been attacked federally (through a claim it violated antitrust laws), in New York (lobbying against the state legalizing mixed martial arts), and on the Internet (an anti-Dana White website).

Monday's event was no different.

Taylor addressed a union hall filled with more than 100 labor leaders, members and Station Casinos employees. He said the casino operator violated federal labor law more times than in any previous case against a Nevada gaming company. He compared Station's ownership to Middle Eastern dictators.

Afterward, Taylor said the ruling went beyond any decision made during the union's recent high-profile labor disputes, including the Culinary's six-and-a-half-year strike against the New Frontier, the longest walkout in the history of U.S. organized labor.

"I've read a lot of decisions," Taylor said. "I've never seen one that was this overwhelming."

Over the top? Maybe. But it's all in the hype.

It's an understatement to say the Culinary's campaign to organize some of Station Casinos' 13,000 workers has turned bitter. Company officials were even incensed that the Culinary waited three days to comment on the labor ruling.

Maybe the union needed the weekend to print the oversized copies of pages from the 157-page ruling, which adorned the walls of the union hall. Behind the lectern, a banner was mounted with photos of the aggrieved Station Casinos employees, proclaiming their vindication.

A second banner contained unflattering photos of Station Casinos Executive Vice President Scott Nielson and chief spokeswoman Lori Nelson next to the headline, "They Lied."

All that was missing was UFC octagon announcer Bruce Buffer.

"We want these issues resolved," Taylor said.

That's not going to happen anytime soon.

The National Labor Relations Board is short members. New appointments are not on the horizon. The union's attorney said the matter could be settled by the end of 2012. The company's lawyer put the time frame at two to three years.

Meanwhile, don't expect the UFC, White, the Fertittas or the company to sit quietly.

Las Vegas Review-Journal business writer Chris Sieroty reports that the city's airwaves may soon be flooded with "educational" television commercials about right-to-work laws in Nevada.

Folks close to Station Casinos are expected to "privately" fund the ads targeted at the Culinary.

Taylor said the union decided to look at the UFC because it "was approached by some of the fighters."

White has said repeatedly that the Culinary is only using the UFC to get at the Fertittas.

The union's focus is bound to change next year. Contracts for 60,000 hotel workers on the Strip and downtown expire. Taylor is helping the Culinary's affiliate in beleaguered Atlantic City with contract talks at nine of the city's 11 hotel-casinos.

"That market has all kinds of challenges that (Las Vegas) doesn't have," Taylor said.

But Atlantic City doesn't have the Culinary-Station Casinos smackdown.

Howard Stutz's Inside Gaming column appears Sundays. He can be reached at hstutz@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3871.
He blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/stutz.
Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.