Sheldon Adelson Losing His Iron Grip: Sands One Step Closer to Unionizing

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is having a bad week.

First his heavily pushed online gambling prohibition bill, Restore America’s Wire Act (RAWA), was ruled dead on arrival in Congress.

Now we learn that Adleson’s Sands Casino in Bethlehem is one step closer to unionizing.

For years, Adelson has worked hard to keep the unions out of his casino establishments and, for the first time in 25 years, it appears as if he is about to lose that battle to a bunch of security guards making a mere $12 an hour.

Last week, a National Labor Relations Board panel in Washington, D.C., upheld a 2012 ruling that requires Sands to recognize the 147-member guard union and enter into bargaining sessions.

"Sheldon Adelson was hell-bent on keeping us out and it didn't work," Peter Luck, vice president of LEEBA, told the Allentown Morning Call. "If they had given guards a fraction of the money they've spent on legal costs of fighting this, we probably wouldn't be here."  

When contacted by the Morning Call Monday, Sands spokesman Ron Reese said Sands will appeal the ruling to the circuit court.

From the Morning Call:

The latest ruling, issued last week, is expected to push the battle to its final stage, in a courtroom.

It's the kind of battle Adelson does not often lose. In Las Vegas, Adelson is one of the only casino owners who has been able to keep the powerful, 60,000-member culinary union out of his gambling resorts.

At one point, Adelson even fought to keep culinary union workers from handing out leaflets on the public sidewalk outside the Venetian. When police and local courts told him he couldn't, he spent eight years appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court before giving up.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com