A new law passed in the Nevada State Senate will give workers who have lost their hospitality and travel jobs due to the pandemic the right to return to work when business reopens or resumes. Senate Bill 386, known as the Right of Return, snakes its way through the Senate’s Trade and Labor Committee.
According to Culinary Workers Union Local 226, cities like Baltimore, Los Angeles, Minneolis, Philadelphia, and San Diego already have regulations giving workers the right to get their jobs back. The bill also prevents employers from forcing older workers to retire early instead of hiring them again.
The culinary association told a story about Jorge Padilla who worked as the banquet food server at Green Valley Ranch for nine years and made $ 13.40 an hour before being laid off in March 2020 when the pandemic began. He says time magazine He was not contacted while the resort was hiring. According to Padilla, the company requires former employees to respond for their work. As early as October, the culinary union estimated that 58 percent of the workers at the Casinos station in their bargaining unit had lost their jobs. If Padilla responded for a new job at the resort, he would lose seniority, vacation time, and his previous hourly rate.
In October, Green Valley Ranch’s parent company, Station Casinos, announced time in a statement „that 1,300 laid-off workers have returned to work and earned the same or more money than before the layoffs,” unless they took a job of a different classification „.
In Nevada, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in February, a decrease of -0.2 percentage points from January 2021 and an increase of 4.6 percent from February 2020 according to the latest figures from the country’s Ministry of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Employment in Las Vegas rose 1,300 jobs in February, down from 145,600 jobs since February 2020.
“Already tens of thousands of workers in Nevada are at risk of serious economic insecurity. You have been unemployed for over a year, facing an overcrowded unemployment system, food insecurity, housing problems and a host of other problems due to the public health and economic crisis, ”says Geoconda Argüello-Kline, secretary and treasurer of the culinary union. „Knowing they’ll get their jobs back would at least give workers hope that they won’t become homeless or have trouble feeding their families. These are fears that too many Nevadans and their families face on a daily basis.”
Legislators have to pass the bill in committee before Friday, April 9th.
• • Fired workers say they will be passed over – for their own jobs [Time]
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