Worker Station

Four years ago, they took over half-a-billion dollars from Station Casinos

2007 LBO cash payments to Station Casinos company insiders:

• Blake Sartini and Delise Sartini (née Fertitta): $200,919,330
• Frank J. Fertitta III: $148,654,355
• Lorenzo J. Fertitta: $145,069,850

Also,

• Glenn Christenson: $51,889,130 
• Scott Nielsen $41,130,055 
• William Warner $39,825,510
• Richard Haskins $16,563,680  
• Thomas Friel $5,860,265
• James Nave, DVM $3,641,700
• Lowell Lebermann, Jr. $2,801,700
• Lee Isgur $2,205,000
• Robert E. Lewis $1,575,000

Since 2007, Station Casinos workers have not had a wage increase. The company has made insurance costs more expensive and stopped matching contributions to 401(k)s.  There is no job security for Station Casinos workers. And the company has told workers not to join the union.

Sign a petition to demand fair treatment for Station Casinos workers!

 

“Best Company to Work For” FAIL, again (UPDATED)

Why has Station Casinos failed to make Fortune Magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For again, for the third year in a row?

In the 2007 buyout, thirteen top Station Casinos executives and owners paid themselves $660 million while saddling the company with billions of dollars of debt. This increased debt load made it difficult for the company to deal with the steep economic downturn in Las Vegas. It soon resorted to subcontracting out whole departments (reservations, uniform rooms) and customer-favorite coffee shops, putting hundreds of workers out of work. Since the buyout, the company had terminated more than 2,800 employees, cutting its workforce by over 20%, even though most of the top executives who benefited from the buyout have stayed in place and kept their jobs and their paychecks and perks.

Many workers have had enough and have demanded to be allowed to make their own decision about forming a union. The company responded by waging a brutal anti-union campaign, using alleged intimidation, harassment, surveillance and other union-busting tactics against its own employees. The government has charged the company with 201 violations of its employees’ right to participate in union activities, and the company is on trial in front of an National Labor Relations Board Administrative Judge.

It’s hardly a great workplace where employees, except those at the very top, cannot get affordable benefits and have no guarantee that you’ll have a job tomorrow no matter how long you’ve worked at the company. It cannot be a great place to work where management refuses to respect employees’ legal rights on the job. It’s no wonder Station Casinos has again failed to be named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.

 

$500 For (Some Of) You

Five Hundred Dollars. That’s an extra 6 CENTS PER HOUR if you had worked 40 hours per week for the last four years.

Over the last four years, UNION tipped workers on the Strip got $1.63 per hour in raises and UNION non-tipped workers on the Strip got $2.93 per hour in raises. A UNION tipped worker who had worked 40 hours per week for those years got a total of $6,313 more in wages. A UNION non-tipped worker who had worked 40 hours per week for those years got a total of $13,106 more in wages.

And these UNION workers still pay ZERO out of their paychecks for excellent family healthcare and are guaranteed a pension when they retire.

Meanwhile, in 2010, at Station Casinos:

• CEO Frank Fertitta III received $216,890 in “life insurance” benefits and $15,983 in “executive medical” benefits.
• Executive Vice President Scott Nielson received $21,679 in “supplemental long-term disability” benefits, $17,900 in “tax services” benefits, and $4,500 in “fitness training” benefits.
• Chief Operating Officer Kevin Kelley received $10,186 in “supplemental long-term disability” benefits, $9,391 in “club membership and fees” and $5,700 in “fitness training” benefits.
• The top five executives were paid a combined salary of $5,158,000.

 

 

Demonstrators Shut Down Two Lanes of Sahara While Over a Thousand Protest Station Casinos' Treatment and Firing of Latino Workers

Fired Latino workers from Station Casinos led members of the Culinary and Bartenders unions in the city’s largest civil disobedience in over a decade to protest the company’s treatment and firing of Latino workers on June 2, 2011.  The large protest came as Station Casinos completes the final stages of its bankruptcy restructuring. Over 1000 people rallied while 150 were arrested after they sat down in two Sahara Avenue traffic lanes in front of Palace Station near Interstate 15 and not far from the Las Vegas Strip.

The protest included street theater to draw attention to the company’s treatment of Latino workers, failure to provide wage increases and retirement contributions, and higher costs for worker health plans.

Station Casinos is the subject of the largest Unfair Labor Practice case ever filed against a Nevada gaming company by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Many of the government’s 201 charges against the company affect Latino workers. Eight of the ten worker organizers who have been fired by Station Casinos are Latino; two have since been reinstated.  Over 90 percent of the workers who were called by the government to testify against the company are Latino.

The government has charged the company with allegedly using tactics including harassment, threats, retaliatory firings and disciplines, and the solicitation of customer complaints to impede worker efforts to form a union.   The government’s seven-month prosecution of the company ended in May and, in a surprise move, Station Casinos called no witnesses in its defense.  During the course of the trial, the government’s charges against the company grew from 168 to 201 alleged violations of federal labor laws.  A decision in the case is expected later this year.

Teresa Debellonia was one of the workers fired by Station Casinos after she began exercising her right to form a union.  After the NLRB charged the company with allegedly retaliating against her because of her union activity and appearance as a government witness in the NLRB’s case against Station Casinos, the company reinstated her with back pay and no loss of seniority. “I am a mother and I want a better future for my children,” said Debellonia, a Guest Room Attendant at Green Valley Ranch Resort Casino. “I’m happy to be back at work, but I want Station Casinos to treat its workers equally and fairly.”

Since the 2007 management-led buyout allowed a small group of company insiders to take $660 million out of the company, workers at Station Casinos have not had a raise, have had the cost of their health insurance increased, have had no employer contribution to their 401k retirement accounts, and have seen the loss of thousands of jobs.

 

 

 

Station executives paid over $6.3 million in 2009

Station Casinos’ executives continue to be handsomely rewarded despite the company’s bankruptcy. Total compensation for Station Casinos’ top five executives was $6,314,480 in 2009.

Station Casinos’ executive compensation in 2009

Name	Title	Biweekly pay	Annual salary	Other compensation*	Total
Frank J. Fertitta III	Chief Executive Officer	$86,538.46	$2,250,000	$312,263	$2,562,263
Thomas M. Friel	Chief Accounting Officer	$17,307.69	$450,000	$82,929	$532,929
Richard J. Haskins	General Counsel	$22,846.15	$594,000	$218,301	$812,301
Kevin L. Kelley	Chief Operating Officer	$38,461.54	$1,000,000	$342,588	$1,342,588
Scott M. Nielson	Chief Development Officer	$33,230.77	$864,000	$200,399	$1,064,399

Source: SEC Filing 10K/A, 4/30/2010

(*This includes Bonus, Stock Awards, Option Awards, Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation, Change in Pension Value and Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Earnings, and All Other Compensation.)

Because the 2007 buyout put the company in financial difficulties, the company has increased your health insurance premiums, subcontracted restaurants and uniform rooms, and took away your 401(k) match. Still, all of these cuts were not enough to keep the company from losing $1.7 billion in 2009, but the company still paid its top executives over $6.3 million. Do you think that’s fair?

How Much Is Enough?

In November 2007, thirteen top insiders of Station Casinos – its executives, directors, and largest shareholders – received $660 million when the company went through a $5.4-billion “buyout.”

How much money is $660 million?

That kind of money could pay for the PPO family health insurance premiums for all 13,000 Station workers, at the current level of $175 per month, for 24 years.

With that much money, the company could also continue to pay matching 401(k) contributions into all its employees’ 401(k) accounts, at the 2007 level of $4.2 million per year, for over 150 years.

Or, the company could buy a house for 4,700 of its employees. (Current median home price in Las Vegas is $139,400.)

But the company did not choose to spend money this way. Instead, it gave all this money – two-thirds of a billion dollars – to a lucky thirteen.

When is enough enough?

For more information on how the company went bankrupt because it borrowed too much money to pay its insiders, see the report released by the Culinary Workers Union last fall:  “A Postmortem: How Station Casinos Insiders Drove the Company Into Bankruptcy.”

“Sound Byte of the Week” from Station Casinos

Stations COO Kevin Kelley apparently was not pleased with recent reporting on Isle of Capri’s agreement with one of the company’s main banks to manage the Palace, Sunset, Boulder and Red Rock casinos if the bank gains control of the four properties.  (Both the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review Journal covered the story.)  Kelley sent a missive to employees to remind them “that much of what you see and hear in the media is not actually news” and “to take what’s reported in the media and heard on the street with a grain of salt.”  He goes on to say that the company’s goals remain the same:  “to restructure our debt to ultimately emerge a stronger company, protect our Team Members’ jobs and continue to operate our company the way the Fertitta family has operated in this community for over 30 years.”

Kelley’s comments probably ring a little hollow to the hundreds of Station workers who have lost their jobs since the company went private at the end of 2007 and for the workers still there, they probably don’t feel so protected after having their 401(k) match suspended and their health insurance premiums jacked up and watching their coworkers lose their jobs and benefits with Stations to outside companies like Coco’s, Denny’s, Original House of Pancakes, and Cintas.

Deutsche Bank, of course, is the bank that holds most of the $2.475 billion mortgage debt on Stations top four revenue-generating casinos:  Palace, Sunset, Boulder and Red Rock.  If Stations isn’t able to reach a restructuring agreement with their lenders by the end of March, Deutsche Bank may be able to take over those properties and bring in an operator like Isle of Capri.

Business as usual for whom?

Buyout:  Company says business as usual

Bankruptcy:  Company says business as usual

When the Fertittas and Colony Capital took Station Casinos private at the end of 2007, the company assured workers that it was going to be “business as usual.”  When the company filed for bankruptcy on July 28, 2009, management said once again it was going to be “business as usual” and even said:  "Just as importantly, our Team Members will see no difference in their jobs."

For Station workers, the buyout, which left the company with a crushing debt load, and the bankruptcy have been anything but business as usual.

In fact, workers have faced not only significant cutbacks and takeaways, but restaurants and now, entire departments are being subcontracted:

• The company stopped 401(k) matching
• The company raised health insurance premiums
• The company has cut workers’ hours while increasing workloads because of staffing shortages
•  Long-time coffee shop workers have been fired – at Green Valley Ranch, Fiesta Henderson, Fiesta Rancho, Santa Fe Station, Texas Station, Palace Station, Sunset Station and Boulder Station – as the company subcontracts its coffee shops to outside companies
• The company closed Cherry Night Club
• The company subcontracted its uniform departments to Cintas

 Business as usual for whom?

Diane on Benefits and Job Security