Nevada Carpenters Union loses NLRB election

Friday, Feb. 14, 2003 | 9:58 a.m.

The Nevada Carpenters Union lost a National Labor Relations Board-held election Thursday to represent 18 Mirage carpenters and upholsterers at the MGM MIRAGE-owned hotel-casino. Employees voted 12-5 to reject the union. There was one contested vote.

Lenny Taylor, a Carpenters Union organizer, blamed the results on the company's alleged union busting tactics. "The company is willing to spend $2 million a year on things like captive audience meetings where workers listen to union busters for at least two hours a week. At the election, the workers were surrounded by their supervisors. It was all very intimidating. But we respect the workers' right to choose."

MGM MIRAGE spokesman Alan Feldman disagreed.

"The employees know that it's always best to have a direct relationship with management and not have outside third parties, with (their) issues and agendas, get in the way," he said.

Taylor said the union will continue to file unfair labor practice charges against the hotel-casino and is awaiting the results of an NLRB investigation of the union's latest filing on Jan. 27 on behalf of Dan Kowal, a carpenter the union says was accused of stealing cardboard boxes meant for the Dumpster.