Court rules in favor of unions (won another round in their 14-year legal battle)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

CARSON CITY, CA Culinary and bartenders unions have won another round in their 14-year legal battle with former owners of the Sahara and Hacienda hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. But there's still no final decision in the case.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the National Labor Relations Board to reconsider its decision to let former hotel-casino owners Paul and Sue Lowden stop collecting union dues from employees after a contract expired.

Richard McCracken, the Las Vegas attorney for Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, said there are three vacancies on the five-member NLRB that probably won't be filled until a new president is elected — so any NLRB decision will take time.

The Hacienda Hotel has been demolished and a new casino has been built on the site. The Sahara is under new ownership. But the Lowdens are still part of Archon Corp., which is the subject of the legal action.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/27/state/n160641D86.DTL&type=politics

[BrklynLiberal]

1. An essential part of rebuilding this country is to get the unions back to strength..

[AdHocSolver]

3. That won't happen until trade agreements like NAFTA, WTO, etc. are changed to "force" manufacturing

jobs to be brought back to the U.S. So long as the corporations can increase profit by offshoring jobs, the unions will be toothless.

Union clout is based on the ability to cause a company to lose money, either by shutting down production or services, or by having union members transfer business to competitors. In addition, unions need to elect people to government who will see to it that, for example, OSHA laws and environmental laws are enforced to protect workers on the job.

For the past twenty-five years, union leadership has failed the labor movement. The rank and file supported Reagan for president in 1980 and he did more damage to the union movement than any other president.

Until the union people wake up to reality, you can increase membership geometrically and it won't make one bit of difference.

[Omaha Steve]

5. Raygun was a former union President

But most of labor didn't back him. Jimmy Carter and hostages in Iran was the deciding factor. I was GAU (AFL-CIO). Like most of labor, we backed Carter.

Get off labors back. We are putting over 200 MILLION into Democratic candidates coffers. Adding in state & local races it is over 350.


http://asia.news.yahoo.com/080825/ap/d92pk2uo0.html

Organized labor reunites to vote.s for Obama

Tuesday August 26, 7:30 AM

As Sweeney was speaking at the rally, the AFL-CIO mailed out a million flyers to voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin touting Obama.

Union members made up 12.1 percent of the working population in 2007. They members made up 20 percent of the work force in 1983.

Despite their decline in numbers nationwide, union members still have major clout inside the Democratic Party. Union delegates represent one fourth of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and organized labor is expected to pump more than $200 million into Democratic coffers by Election Day.

Union voters also are reliable Democratic supporters, and the AFL-CIO expects one in every four voters going to the polls on Nov. 4 to be from a union household.

Burger, Sweeney and Weaver are all speaking to the Democratic National Convention: Weaver on Monday and Burger and Sweeney on Tuesday.

[pleah]

2. K&R I can't believe this has been going on for 14 years! n/t

[happyslug]

4. Actual Case was "LOCAL JOINT EXECUTIVE BOARD OF LAS VEGAS V. NLRB"

On 9th Circuit Website:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/Opinions+by+date?OpenView&Start=1&Count=100&Expand=1.1

Actual Case:
http://tinyurl.com/9thcirnlrb