Workers seeking security

Friday, May 30, 1997 | 11:44 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Tom Stoneburner was a 50-year-old shift supervisor for security when Bally's hotel-casino in Reno was taken over by Hilton and was among the scores of workers who were fired.

"It was a traumatic experience," he recalled Thursday in testimony to the Assembly Labor and Management Committee in support of a bill to help dislocated workers. "The impact can be lessened by advance notice" to the workers and the community.

Stoneburner said he found another job quickly but the salary was 60 percent lower than his pay at Bally's. "Here I was 50 years old, on the street and competing for an entry-level job."

Assembly Bill 506 would require companies with 50 or more employees to give 120-days notice if they planned mass layoffs and to file a plan with the state justifying the action. The bill sets up state programs to help the displaced workers.

The bill ran into solid opposition from a host of businesses and its chances of passage this Legislature are slim. After the hearing, Assemblywoman Sandi Krenzer, D-Las Vegas, the chairwoman of the committee, called the bill "onerous ... almost draconian in the provisions of reporting and mandating benefits.

"We can't let the state make decisions for business," she said when asked about the chances of AB506. "This bill is not the solution."

But she said she will encourage the state Department of Employment Rehabilitation and Training to do more advertising of its programs to help laid-off workers.

Bob Ostrovsky, representing the Nevada Resort Association, said the bill would get the state involved in making decisions for businesses when they get ready to lay off workers. "The state is equipped to provide programs, not to run businesses," he told the committee.

Sam McMullen, lobbyist for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, said it would take away the flexibility of business to make decisions.

"I'm sure this bill won't be processed much further," he said.

Other businessmen said their employees were their most trusted resource and these decisions are not made hastily. Layoffs, they said, are usually a last resort.

There's a similar federal law that requires companies with more than 100 full-time workers to give 60-day notice of a plant closure or mass layoff.

Ray Bacon, director of the Nevada Manufacturers Association, said the Assembly bill would include part-time workers and doesn't take into consideration the seasonal nature of some of Nevada's businesses.

The bill gained support from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada whose director Bob Fulkerson testified that it's needed to force business to show respect for its workers. At Christmas time, Fulkerson said, there are often closures or big layoffs in the casino industry.

Michael Cook of Reno complained about the "abuses of the corporate tyrants" and cited the case of the layoffs of 40 security guards at the Reno Hilton "in the name of free enterprise."

"There is nothing to protect the working people in Nevada which has 'at-will' employment," he said.

When the bill was introduced, Krenzer cited, as an example of abuse, the case of two employees at Woolworth in Reno -- one of them with 30 years -- who were laid off during the New Year's flood. She said they were offered employment back at entry-level pay.

The bill would require an employee who is rehired to be given the same rate of pay, seniority and health and medical benefits.