Why has Station Casinos failed to make Fortune Magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For again, for the third year in a row?
In the 2007 buyout, thirteen top Station Casinos executives and owners paid themselves $660 million while saddling the company with billions of dollars of debt. This increased debt load made it difficult for the company to deal with the steep economic downturn in Las Vegas. It soon resorted to subcontracting out whole departments (reservations, uniform rooms) and customer-favorite coffee shops, putting hundreds of workers out of work. Since the buyout, the company had terminated more than 2,800 employees, cutting its workforce by over 20%, even though most of the top executives who benefited from the buyout have stayed in place and kept their jobs and their paychecks and perks.
Many workers have had enough and have demanded to be allowed to make their own decision about forming a union. The company responded by waging a brutal anti-union campaign, using alleged intimidation, harassment, surveillance and other union-busting tactics against its own employees. The government has charged the company with 201 violations of its employees’ right to participate in union activities, and the company is on trial in front of an National Labor Relations Board Administrative Judge.
It’s hardly a great workplace where employees, except those at the very top, cannot get affordable benefits and have no guarantee that you’ll have a job tomorrow no matter how long you’ve worked at the company. It cannot be a great place to work where management refuses to respect employees’ legal rights on the job. It’s no wonder Station Casinos has again failed to be named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.
