Donald Trump, who has been been attacking immigrants both with and without legal status as threats to American jobs, and promising prosperity to US workers as soon as our borders are sealed against Latinos, Muslims and other non-white immigrants, has just lost a battle with a Los Vegas hotel workers union made up mainly of immigrants (ones with legal work permission, to be sure, since one would assume that Trump's hotels are not in the business of hiring "illegals" - but see my April 4 post).

The employees at Trump Hotel Las Vegas, 80 percent of whom are immigrants, mainly Latino and Filipino, according to news reports (see below) are obviously well assimilated to American society and culture, because what could be more American, and better protected by US law, than the right to organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions.

Last December, a majority of the employees at Trump's hotel voted to join the Culinary Workers Union and Bartenders Union, despite reported intimidation and retaliation by Trump's hotel, including suspending five workers for wearing union buttons and talking to co-workers about the union drive. The suspended workers were later reinstated with back pay.

The union also filed a complaint against the hotel based on "incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation and threats". In August, 2015, the NLRB upheld another complaint by the same union accusing the hotel of threatening workers with reprisals for organizing and in one case, firing a pro-union employee. See:

https://talking-union.wordpress.com/...workers-union/

In the latest development, the NLRB Regional Director has upheld the election and certified the union as bargaining agent, but Trump's hotel still has the right to appeal to the full board in Washington or to refuse to bargain with the union, which would move the dispute to federal court.

It remains to be seen how much longer Trump will continue to fight for the "right" to pay the mainly immigrant workers in this union, whose spokesperson, Bethany Khan, has a Muslim last name, lower wages than those received by both American citizen and immigrant workers at unionized hotels in the same area.

It also raises questions about whether Trump is winning the race for Hypocrite-in Chief among the presidential candidates by fighting to lower the wages of his immigrant, and American, hotel workers, and exploiting other immigrant workers by sponsoring them for green cards at far below US wages (see my April 4 post), while at the same time attacking immigrants as sources of "cheap labor" who "steal American jobs".

See also:

http://huffingtonpost.com/entry/dona...b0daf53af0a249

Roger Algase
Attorney at Law