FOX5 Vegas - KVVUStation Casinos launches ad campaign against Culinary Union

By airing television ads and putting up freeway billboards, Station Casinos LLC is attempting to fight back against what it's calling a corporate harassment campaign put on by the Culinary Union Local 226.

"We wanted to inform the community that this isn't right, there should be no group out there, for whatever their agenda is, that's trying to take business away from Las Vegas," said Lori Nelson, a spokesperson for Station Casinos.

Station Casinos released letters it said were sent by the Culinary Union to concert promoters, convention planning committees and to couples planning weddings, urging them to stop giving business to Station properties.

"And in turn what they're doing is hurting the very hospitality workers they claim to want to be helping," Nelson told FOX5.

But the Culinary Union said Station is shifting the debate between the company versus the union, when really the debate should be between Station Casinos and its employees.

"To make it look like it's the Culinary against them, but they should pay more attention to what their workers want, it's really what the workers want, not what Culinary wants," said Mario Medina, a Culinary Union organizer, and former Station Casino buffet worker.

The Culinary Union said the letters are to make Station customers aware of the ongoing labor dispute.

"We just want them to stop doing their illegal behavior because they are the worst violator in Nevada history in labor laws," Medina told FOX5.

But there is one thing both sides agree on - that forming a union or not forming one is a decision left for the Station employees.

However, Medina said Station team members want to form a union, while Nelson said just the opposite.

"Station workers, we're fighting every day. We deserve to have what workers have up and down the Strip," Medina said.

"The overwhelming majority of our team members have chosen that they don't believe the culinary union is the right path for them," Nelson said.

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