LAS VEGAS, NV – A large
majority of the workers at Red Rock
Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada voted
“no” to unionization, but a federal
district court judge ordered their
employer to bargain with union
officials anyway. Casino officials
appealed, and Red Rock employee
Raynell Teske supported their efforts
to overturn the judge’s coercive order
that overrides the choice workers
made at the ballot box.
With free Foundation legal aid,
Teske filed a brief arguing that the
district judge had no reason to
impose a union onto workers who
had already soundly voted to reject
it. A Ninth Circuit panel denied the
initial appeal, but issued an unusual
concurring opinion in which all
three judges said they disagreed with
that outcome, but were bound by
Ninth Circuit precedent to uphold
the district judge’s order.
Binding precedent can only be
overturned through an en banc
hearing before a larger Ninth Circuit
panel. Red Rock lawyers filed for an
en banc rehearing of their appeal.The
court then ordered National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) lawyers
defending the order to respond,
another signal the judges may be
willing to overturn this ridiculous
precedent and rule in the workers’
favor. Teske filed a second amicus
brief, urging the court to hear the
case en banc.
Judge Overrides Workers’
Vote Against Union
‘Representation’
The situation at Red Rock began in
December 2019, when the NLRB held
a secret-ballot election on whether
to unionize the Casino’s workers.
Employees rejected union officials’
effort to become their monopoly
bargaining “representatives” in an
NLRB-supervised vote by a nearly
100-vote margin. Despite that
outcome, NLRB Region 28 Director
Cornele Overstreet sought a federal
court injunction imposing the union
over the workers’ objections.
On July 20, 2021, District Judge
Gloria Navarro agreed with the
NLRB Director’s request, and
ordered Red Rock to bargain with
union officials despite the employees’
vote against unionization. The judge
said the order was justified because
union officials claimed that, before
the vote, a majority of workers had
signed union authorization cards.
Teske’s amicus briefs argue those
“Card Check” signatures don’t prove
that union officials ever had majority
support. She contends the level of
union support was tested fairly by
the secret-ballot election, in which
workers voted 627-534 against
unionization.
Her briefs point out that the
NLRB and federal courts have long
recognized that secret ballots are a
more reliable way of gauging worker
support for a union, because workers
are often pressured, harassed, or
misled by union organizers into
signing cards.
Unions officials know that Card
Check signatures do not indicate
solid worker support. The AFL-CIO
admitted in its internal organizing
handbook that it needed at least 75%
Card Check support before having
even a 50-50 chance of winning a
secret-ballot election. Union bosses
prefer Card Check unionization
because they can more easily take
control of workplaces where they
lack popular support, and partisan
NLRB appointees now are working
to grant their wish.
Partisan NLRB Pushes
Unreliable ‘Card Check’
Past legislative attempts to enact
Card Check unionization, including
the so-called “PRO Act,” pending
in the U.S. Senate right now, faced
bipartisan opposition. However,
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer
Abruzzo, a former high-ranking
union lawyer, believes she can
implement Card Check without
congressional approval. Abruzzo has
expressed interest in resurrecting
a decades-old NLRB doctrine that
allows unions to sue employers to
try to force them to automatically
bargain whenever the union
possesses a pile of untested union
cards.
“There is no reason why district
court judges or NLRB bureaucrats
should be able to override workers’
choice at the ballot box,” said
National Right to Work Foundation
Vice President Patrick Semmens. “A
favorable ruling for Raynell Teske
and her colleagues could provide
legal ammunition for future workers
if the NLRB tries to force them to
accept union officials for whom they
never even had a chance to vote.”