Las Vegas Casino Boulder Station Workers Vote for Union Representation

The Boulder Station Casino became the first Las Vegas-based casino in the Station Casinos chain has voted for union representation.

In a secret ballot vote held last week by the National Labor Relations Board over 67 percent of 532 participating casino employees voted for representation by Culinary Local 226.

Geoconda Arguello-Kline, who is both the secretary and treasurer for the Culinary Union was happy to announce the results of the vote and stated that Boulder Station workers had disregarded the company’s strong anti-union campaign carried out over the past few months to discourage them from joining the union by voting in favour of the union.

Culinary Workers Union

She stated that the union was looking forward to start contract negotiations with the casino’s management at the earliest. The total number of union-eligible casino workers is 570.

Station Casinos said that although the company was disappointed by the results of the election, it would soon start the collective bargaining process with the union. Richard Haskins, president of Station Casinos said that the management had been vilified for decades by the union.

In a statement Richard Haskins said

While we are disappointed with the manner in which the union conducted the Boulder Station election campaign and with the election result, we accept it and will satisfy our legal obligation to bargain in good faith, with a sincere desire to reach agreement. We trust this brings an end to the corporate terrorism campaign waged by the union against us that was based on the falsehood that the U.S. government is incapable of conducting a secret-ballot election.

David Schwartz, the UNLV Center for Gaming Research director stated that the vote was a surprise but could not be called a great victory for the union yet. According to him, the success of the union win will lie in the final contract terms that is agreed upon with the casino.

The Boulder Station casino is the first of the Station’s nine casinos located in the Las Vegas area to unionize. The Culinary Local 226 Union organizes its unionization on an individual property basis rather than an entire casino group basis. This vote for union representation is the first for Station after Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park in California, a tribal casino managed by Station voted for a union contract in 2014.

Supporting workers in Boulder Station casino were pleased with the outcome. Maria Portillo, a food runner at Boulder Station stated that the casino was enjoying successful operations as a result of the hard work put in by the workers over the years. Portillo said that having union contracts would assure Boulder employees of job security, good health care, fair wages, along with a pension plan.