LAS VEGAS - It was quite a spectacle. Hundreds of protestors, representing the Culinary Union Local 226, gathered outside Palace Station. The protestors shut down two lanes of traffic on Sahara Boulevard in front of the casino.
Station Casinos, which owns and operates Palace Station, called the protest a "staged and shameless media stunt".
The protestors worked with Metro Police to stop traffic. The violators were boarded on buses, driven around the corner, and cited before being dismissed.
Mario Medina was in the thick of it.
"I was one of their best workers, but everything changed when I started wearing my union button," he said. "Shortly after I started wearing it, I got fired."
Medina says he was fired in March 2010 from the Fiesta in Henderson. While he marched in a union protest that implied Station Casinos discriminates against Latinos, he stopped short of saying it himself.
"I feel that they should not discriminate against anybody," he said.
The protest is part of a long, bitter dispute between the state's largest union and the largest local casino company. Culinary Union Local 226 has been pushing unsuccessfully for Station Casinos to unionize.
Station Casinos released a statement, saying it "has consistently stated that it is not anti-union, rather it's pro-employee and the decision to join a union must be left up to employees, not the employer."
"What they are doing is completely wrong," said protester Geoconda Arguello Kline. "We have workers where they fired Latinos."
Station Casinos says the union is resorting to inflammatory statements to pressure workers into unionizing. It also denies it discriminates against Latinos, calling the claim "not only insulting, but is their most disgusting lie yet."
Station Casinos says 26% of its workforce is Hispanic. The company also says 15% of its managers are Hispanic. The company says, by comparison, 26% of all workers in the Las Vegas valley are Hispanic and only 10% of all managers are Hispanic.
