Four Las Vegas casinos and the city’s stagehands union are on the cusp of settling a decade-old labor dispute over missing trust fund payments.
The trustees of the Nevada Resort Association-International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators Local 720 and attorneys for four Las Vegas Strip casinos convened in a federal courtroom in Las Vegas Tuesday morning to apprise U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen of the settlement progress and to remove a barrier to a final agreement.
The respective parties said they have made “significant progress” in reaching either a partial or full settlement in the labor dispute that could add up to a large sum owed to current and past workers at several prominent Las Vegas Strip casinos.
Local 720 sued the casinos on Jan. 9, 2013, accusing them of breach of collective bargaining agreements, fiduciary duty and misappropriation of trust assets by not making full payments to trust funds.
Named as defendants are Harrah’s Las Vegas, Flamingo Las Vegas Operating Co. dba Flamingo Hilton-Las Vegas, Desert Palace Inc. dba Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas Operating Co. dba Paris LLC, and Parball Corp. dba Bally’s Las Vegas.
The union seeks an accounting of casino books, unpaid fringe benefits, damages, liquidated damages, audit expenses, and legal costs.
Local 720 said Harrah’s, et al., have not paid full fringe benefits contributions as required by collective bargaining agreements with the casinos and refuse to permit audits to determine the exact amounts of missing contributions and other possible damages.
The union initially sued each casino in separate federal lawsuits, but they were consolidated into one case to expedite the legal process and reduce legal costs.
Local 720 said since January 2006, the casinos did not make required contributions to its pension, wage disability, and training and education trusts.
After about three years of rising litigation costs, the union and casinos in January agreed to stay proceedings and undertake negotiations to settle some or all of the case.
Those negotiations, however, ran into a judicial barricade with the January 2015 federal bankruptcy filing by Desert Palace in Illinois.
The Tuesday hearing at the federal courthouse in Las Vegas sought to separate Desert Palace from the case and enable the parties to finalize settlement details and put it in writing.
The parties in March said several rounds of settlement negotiations pared down all settlement offers with within less than 10 percent of each other and a “settlement of all issues appears to be imminent.”
With Desert Palace out of the way, the remaining parties are free to finalize their agreement and submit a settlement proposal and stipulation to the federal court for likely approval.
Representing Local 720 is Michael Urban, Nathan Ring and Sean McDonald of the Urban Law Firm in Las Vegas. Las Vegas attorneys Rick Roskelley and Rachel Silverstein of Littler Mendelson represent the casinos.
Local 720 has dealt with trust fund shortages for more than a decade.
In April 2002, the New York-based IATSE revoked the charter for Local 720 and appointed two trustees to oversee its operations.
The international union afterward filed two federal lawsuits against Local 720, one of which named the local’s $130 million pension fund as a defendant. Local 720 at the time represented stagehands at a dozen Las Vegas casinos and had about 1,600 members.
IATSE said Local 720’s pension fund trustees changed the pension fund’s structure to prevent the two trustees appointed by the international union from taking control of the pension fund.
The local claimed the international union only wanted to take control of its pension fund and take over the local’s assets.
The IATSE eventually dropped its claims regarding the pension fund, and a new election and local constitution settled remaining matters.
With Local 720 reorganized, under new leadership and more focused on business matters, union officials in 2013 accused Harrah’s, et al., of not paying the full amounts due to the pension trust, apprentice and journeyman training and education trust, and the wage disability trust.
