Culinary 226 members protest outside Palace Station
Several hundred Culinary 226 members demonstrated Friday night in front of the Palace Station in protest of what the union calls unfair treatment of Station Casinos' workers.
The crowd marched back and forth on the narrow sidewalk outside the West Sahara Avenue hotel-casino and chanted, "Station Casinos, look around; Vegas is a union town!"
Culinary Local 226 and its affiliate Bartenders Local 165 have spent more than a decade attempting to organize 5,000 nongaming employees of Station Casinos' 12,000-member workforce under the union banner.
In its efforts to organize Station Casinos workers, the union has advocated a card-check process, in which employees can organize if a majority of workers simply sign union-provided cards. Station Casinos has said it wouldn't stand in the way of a secret-ballot vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
The union this week had sought a permit to stage a protest in front of Palace Station. Las Vegas police denied the group's request to gather in the street, Culinary officials said, but the union went ahead with the demonstration anyway.
In a statement released Thursday, union Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Arguello-Kline called the permit denial "a blatant attempt to suppress the voice of the people," and added, "We will exercise our constitutional right to free speech and peaceful assembly as we have been doing for 80 years."
The union, in the release, accused the Metropolitan Police Department of denying the request because of Station Casinos' campaign contributions made to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and because of his relationship with Bill Young, the former sheriff who now works for the casino company.
Lori Nelson, vice president of corporate communications for Station Casinos, had harsh criticism for the union.
"The Culinary Union continues to stage protests and aggressively harass and spread lies against our Company out of their continued frustration they haven't been able to persuade the majority of our employees to join their Union," Nelson said in a statement Friday night. "We are proud of our 40-year history of treating our 12,000 team members with dignity and respect as well as support their right to join a union if they so choose as that decision is theirs not ours to make."
Las Vegas police said they support the right to protest legally and peaceably. Permits to gather, including those requiring the blocking of streets and travel lanes, are issued by Las Vegas and Clark County, and Metro does not approve or deny permits, the department said.
The union claimed its request was denied because of the $105,000 in campaign contributions Lombardo received from the casino company and its affiliates. It also noted that Lombardo referred to Young, now Station Casinos vice president of security, as his mentor during his 2014 run for the top cop spot.
Police did not respond to questions regarding the campaign contributions or to requests for an interview with Lombardo.
After the sun set, the crowd marched half a block west to Teddy Drive. They chanted "no justice, no peace" as members with fluorescent vests over red union shirts yelled at protesters to stay on the sidewalk.
In a area marked off by cones, congressional candidate and state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, led the crowd in a chant of "Si se puede" and talked about rich corporations destroying the American Dream. "Your fight is our fight," a maid who works at the Flamingo promised Station employees.
Crowd members whooped and cheered, and promised they would be back.
An officer on the scene said no one had been arrested.
"We don't want to arrest anyone," he said.
— Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Find him on Twitter: @WesJuhl
