Red Rock hospitality staff to sue operator over post-covid return policies

The class-action lawsuit is being spearheaded by the Nevada Culinary Union, which has raised a number of disputes with Station Casinos management recently.

It alleges that the casino operator failed to recall furloughed hospitality workers back to work as mandated by the Right to Return Act.

When the pandemic first forced casinos across the US to close, the union said that 98% of hospitality workers were laid off. However, it claims that now only 80% have so far returned.

Under the Right of Return Act, employers must make offers to laid-off employees when they have job openings for the same or similar positions as the employee worked previously.

Workers who receive job offers have 24-hours to accept or decline and must be available to work within five days of receiving an offer. Employers may then be cleared of obligation to recall a worker if they turn down or fail to respond to three offers.

“The Culinary Union is proud to have won the right to return for over 350,000 hospitality workers in Nevada. SB386 gave hundreds of thousands of union and non-union casino, hospitality, stadium, and travel-related employees, who were laid off, through no fault of their own, the right to return to their jobs as business returns.,” the union said.

The union had previously taken legal action against Station Casinos because of the operator’s actions during a union election. A federal court ultimately determined that Station had “undermined the fairness” of union elections through what it called “outrageous” benefit changes, and as a result the court ordered Station to immediately recognise and negotiate with the union.

Last month, the union called on the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate what it calls the “deficient” levels of diversity on Red Rock Resorts’ board.