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The Red Rock Casino Resort is shown in the western Las Vegas Valley.
Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 | 11:34 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Station Casinos details lease arrangement, rejection of Boyd (9-26-2009)
- Study: Move to take Station Casinos private was fair (9-23-2009)
- Winners begin to emerge in fight for Station assets (9-11-2009)
- Lenders want study on Station's rejection of Boyd, other issues (9-2-2009)
- Judge delays key part in Station bankruptcy case (9-1-2009)
- Creditors probe deal that took Station private (8-27-2009)
- Station’s legal battle heats up in bankruptcy case (8-24-2009)
- Station Casinos swings to loss in second quarter (8-14-2009)
- Boyd still interested in acquiring Station properties (8-5-2009)
- Culinary Union sees shot in Station insolvency (8-3-2009)
- Lenders battling in Station Casinos bankruptcy case (7-30-2009)
- Station Casinos wants out of lease for office space (7-29-2009)
- Station Casinos files for Chapter 11 (7-28-2009)
- Bondholder drops lawsuit against Station Casinos (5-11-2009)
- Station Casinos: Bankruptcy date depends on bondholders (3-18-2009)
- Betting it all on bankruptcy? (2-17-2009)
- Hearing delayed again on Station Casinos site (2-16-2009)
- Boyd responds to Station’s rejection of buyout (3-9-2009)
- Station rejects Boyd’s offer, extends debt deadline (3-3-2009)
- Boyd makes play for Station Properties (2-24-2009)
- Boyd Gaming offers to buy Station (2-23-2009)
- Station responds to lawsuit, misses $15.5M payment (2-17-2009)
Station Casinos Inc. of Las Vegas wants a lawsuit over employee wages to be put on hold, saying it's entitled to some "breathing room" from such litigation during its bankruptcy proceedings.
With revenue at its locals hotel-casinos declining due to the recession, Station defaulted on debt obligations this year and filed for bankruptcy reorganization July 28. Its hotel-casinos remain open during the bankruptcy process.
At the time of the bankruptcy filing, a lawsuit seeking class-action status was pending in Clark County District Court alleging as many as 20,000 current and former workers were shorted on pay because of a "rounding" system Station uses to track hours worked.
Attorneys for several non-bankrupt Station hotel-casino and casino holding companies moved in August that the state court lawsuit be put on hold because of the bankruptcy. Attorneys for the workers then asked the bankruptcy court Sept. 9 to lift the automatic stay of litigation so they could prosecute the case in the state court.
Attorneys for the workers say employee starting and ending times were rounded both forward and backward.
"This illegal policy and practice has resulted in a systemic failure to compensate hourly employees for all wages and hours earned during their employment with defendants," the workers' attorneys charged in their filing. "Specifically, defendants required their hourly employees to clock in well in advance of their scheduled shift start time and to clock out well after the end of their scheduled shifts. However, by virtue of their rounding policy, defendants failed to compensate their hourly employees for the time they worked before and after their scheduled shift start and end times."
The attorneys say if an hourly employee clocked in up to 14 minutes before the quarter hour, the computer automatically rounded that time forward to the nearest quarter hour. Thus, if an employee clocked in at 8:47 a.m., the computer automatically rounded the shift start time forward to 9 a.m., they said. At the end of the shift, the employee clocking out within seven minutes of the quarter hour had the time rounded back to the nearest quarter hour, they said.
In these examples, the employee would not be paid for one hour of pay per week, the workers' attorneys said.
The case was initially filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada in 2008, but was dismissed for procedural reasons and then was re-filed in state court a few days before Station filed for bankruptcy.
In their motion that the state court lawsuit be allowed to proceed, the workers' attorneys said: "Plaintiffs also allege that the debtor (Station Casinos) is jointly and severally liable with each of the other non-debtor defendants by virtue of the control it exercised over the wages, hours and working conditions of all hourly employees employed by the non-debtor defendants. As a result, plaintiffs and approximately 20,000 similarly situated individuals may have both unsecured and potentially priority wage claims against the debtor."
They cited case law finding that state courts in similar circumstances can assist the bankruptcy process -- rather than interfere with it -- by facilitating thousands of individual claims against the bankruptcy estate.
"Lifting the stay will result in complete resolution of the issues, without any interference with the bankruptcy case," the attorneys argued, adding the rights of other creditors are not implicated.
But attorneys for Station, in their response last week, said the state court case will "inevitably require several years for pre-trial discovery and motion practice to even get to trial."
The "presumption in the (U.S.) Ninth Circuit (federal courts) -- that a Chapter 11 debtor is entitled to the breathing room provided by the automatic stay to allow it to focus on reorganization -- applies, and the plaintiffs have provided no compelling argument to overcome that presumption," Station said in its filing.
"Plaintiffs’ claims are not meritorious," the Station attorneys added.
"Nevertheless, the litigation in the Nevada state court will surely cost the debtor at least several million dollars, even if the debtor obtains a complete judgment of dismissal on the merits. In light of the fact that plaintiffs’ claims are (pre-bankruptcy) unsecured claims, common sense requires that the automatic stay remain in place until it becomes more clear what the likely recovery of unsecured creditors will be in these Chapter 11 cases. Once the parties know what the recovery will be, it will set the stage for practical settlement discussions, and at that point it may make more sense for the debtors to stipulate to a reasonable claim than spend valuable estate resources litigating the claims in state court," Station said.
"Each of the alleged class members holds only a small claim, but the potential class is alleged to include 20,000 present and former employees of the debtor and its subsidiaries. So no employee is harmed economically by the delay to get to a confirmed plan in these cases," the company attorneys argued.
Station added that it pays employees for their meal breaks.
The system now in place, Station said, slightly over-compensates employees in some case and slightly under-compensates them in others, but overall the arrangement "averages out so that employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work."
The time-tracking system, Station said, "is intended to provide employees with time to enter and exit their work locations in an orderly manner, so they can engage in activities such as walking to and from their work stations, using the restroom, stopping by their lockers, and checking their appearance. This policy also provides parameters within which employees know when they may properly clock in and/or out and arrive at their work stations on time and prepared."
In dismissing the initial federal wage lawsuit July 16, U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks cited a jurisdictional rule for class-action lawsuits.
The rule is called the "home-state controversy exception." It says federal courts must decline jurisdiction in such cases when two-thirds or more of the members of the proposed class-action, and the primary defendants, are citizens of the state in which the lawsuit was filed.
In both the federal and state cases, the lead plaintiffs are former Station employees Josh Lukevich, Cathy Scott and Julie St. Cyr. The case has not advanced to a point where a judge has ruled on its motion to be certified as a class-action.
The state suit seeks to represent all individuals who are or were employed by Station since Feb. 4, 2005. The properties named as defendants are Boulder Station, Fiesta Henderson, Fiesta Rancho, Gold Rush, Magic Star, Palace Station, Red Rock Resort, Santa Fe Station, Sunset Station, Texas Station, Wildfire and Wild Wild West.
The workers claim that because of its labor budgeting procedure, Station strictly allocated the number of hours that could be used to staff the various departments at its properties and that compensation of salaried managers was tied to complying with the labor budgets.
"Defendants’ practices ... are anti-competitive in that these illegal practices make one of defendants’ largest cost items — labor — lower than as compared to other casino owners/operators who are desirous of complying with the labor laws," the new state lawsuit charges.
In the now-dismissed federal suit, Station denied wrongdoing and said wage disputes must be resolved by the Nevada Labor Commissioner, not the courts.
But Station attorneys later filed papers in the federal case showing they had engaged in mediation with the workers’ attorneys and that the parties established a discovery plan with the goal of securing a class-wide settlement to be submitted to the court for review.
Because of the large number of current and former employees affected and the large number of workplaces at issue — 12 casinos or hotel-casinos — the parties had agreed to a plan involving sampling so as to avoid having to deal with millions of documents covering thousands of workers over several years.
The plan involved studies or other analysis at two of the casinos regarding the rounding issue, the amount of time it takes to walk from time clocks to the hourly employees’ respective work stations and a determination of the start and end of the work day for hourly employees.
In its August motion that the state case be stayed, attorneys for the holding companies said the discovery was limited for purposes of a pre-class-action certification mediation.
The filing said only certain categories and types of information and documents were to be produced by the two casinos. "Although the parties attended several mediation sessions, they did not settle the matter," the casinos' filing said.
An Oct. 6 hearing in bankruptcy court is planned on whether the workers' lawsuit can proceed in state court.
Since they round up and down. Sounds like biting the hand that feeds you.
Can they make that lawsuit to a certain downtown casino with a dome in front too, tey do the same thing. Most casino do but Stations has to pay up while the lawyers take half.
One question. How much do they owe the employees altogether? Forget full retribution. Will there be enough money after bankruptcy to pay them cents on the dollar?
I'll second Lenny V. These Station employees don't get "breathing room" from paying their bills. Seriously, does anyone think we could use a "breathing room" excuse when NV Energy demands we pay the electric bill or Cox demands we pay the cable bill?
So what makes Station Casinos think it can shirk its responsibility to pay its workers their fair share?
I'll second Atdleft...and third Lenny V. People need to wake up.With todays jobs so hard to get...too many are zipping their lips when clearly the companies are so wrong. What a catch 22 situation.Doesn't seem like much...but you do the math....surprised at the results? don't be it really adds up.That is as bad as those employers having "part time" people for near full time hours, with no bebefits...another catch 22.
I can't quite get a grip on how much they could owe or why?
If they were rounding both ways, what is the problem?
I notice no one seems to be complaining about all the paid breaks, lunch times and free lunches that they have at Station Casinos. That works out to about five hours each week plus the free food.
Seems no one is complaining about the 20% of the employees that show up late each week either.
Yep, Stations should pay for every second worked but stop paying for all the lunches, breaks and food that they give those 20,000 employees.
What about they employess at Thunder Valley, a property managed by Stations Casinos, in Lincoln, CA. ???????
Vegaslee, try not to speak. Your arguement about free food is meritless as the casinos are not doing employees any favors by offering free food. A company by law, is required to offer food if they restrict employees from leaving the work premises. The slop that these casinos offer their employees, I wouldn't force upon the homeless.
I guarantee, late employees are docked for tardiness.
Stations will take every avenue to pay below market wages to keep labor costs down and executive pay up.
Stations is crying foul in dealing with so many legal fronts. If they would operate the company in total fairness, they would not be attacked by the many varied groups.
vegaslee, always somebody sticking up for corporate scumbags. suprised some of the other regular nutcases haven't chimed in. my trip in 2 weeks is not going to include a trip to stations. used to be a regular for years on trips, but have seen places slowly eroding.
Kenodave, why should I not speak?, they allow you to speak.
I have relatives that work for Stations, they are perfectly happy with the food and working conditions but they do their job so they are treated right.
Formervegas76,
You have complained about just about ever property in town in your 300 posts made here from your comfy seat in NY. Where are you going to stay that you are not giving your money to the "corporate scumbags"?
If stations is so bad why has it been that the employees of Stations has not voted in your great unions you support? They have had 15 years to do it and have turned it down each time.
Do I recall reading somewhere Stations was voted one of the Best Employers? What a joke! Again, the comps that author got, gave them BS press. Go UNDER Stations! Let a real company run those places!
Hey IDEALPOKER, Thunder Valley got hit with the same issue because of Stations a couple years ago. I just got my check a few months ago for a little over $500 for back pay. They are wrecking this place. They took away most or are charging us more for our benefits, most likely to make up for it. I heard they were voted the best place to work in Vegas. It must really suck to work at Boyd, Harrahs or any place esle down there.
Maybe the government can take them over!
This is nothing new. Back in 1993 I left Palace Station due to being cheated by working overtime when they asked me to, and they also used my regular schedule to pay me even though they kept me late. When I applied for unemployment I didn't receive it because they used those same phoney time clocks and Won in a telephone conference call, my reason being overtime pay! I worked there for 8 yrs., never was absent one day and never took a vacation either. Put me on your lawsuit list.
vegaslee Are you impaired? Employees are fired for being late not given a pass. Think before you post.
Do you suppose your family or who ever it is who works for Station Casinos is treated a little better after the lawsuits and the potentiial judgement was measured by the thieving Fertitta's? I have friends who work for Station Casinos as well, they hate it. Think before you post
It would appear that some key decision makers at Station's miscalculated as a matter of company policy. I am not a fan of labor in general ( I believe the individual is responsible for their job - not union reps etc) but in this case Station execs likely received bonuses based on their exploitation of their workers. Don't think Unions are beyond reproach either. The Union is just another business with executives of their own.
Wages come first in a number of BK courts, let them get it from the exec salaries
Chapter 11 is restructchering the payments to credit holders. It doesn't mean outright bankruptsy. Stations will be around for a long time.
I worked for them from 1999-2005, we were required to show up 15 to 30 minutes prior to our shift for a "pre-shift meeting" (non compensated, of course) then clock in after the meeting. That adds up to 650 work hours uncompensated, and off the clock, kind of hard to swallow while looking at the salaries of their execs.
On another note about Station business practices.
Right before the opening of Green Valley Ranch(a joint venture with Greenspun, Who also operate this newspaper), all Station employees had the opportunity to transfer to the new property, and thereby increase their income potential. We were told not to consider the move, because the medical benefits will be on a lesser level compared to the property we worked at. As having dependents relying on the medical coverage I decided the coverage was more important. The day Green Valley Ranch opened, our medical coverage dropped to the same as it was at the new property.
The question is:
What kind of company feels the necessity to lie to their employees to keep them from transfering?
Why do you think they are trying so hard to keep unions away from their properties? (we were required to report union reps at the property to our supervisors, or we were facing termination)
I am just one of many, there are thousands of us who were treated similarly by Stations. Most of us moved on, all of us should...
And to those who are happy working there, more power to you, but remember it takes two to be exploited, and most times you will not know when someone is exploiting you. Even with that, there are people out there completely happy with being under-paid, under-appreciated and over-worked because they don't know any better.