Richard McCracken, international counsel for Unite Here, has been a union lawyer for 37 years. For nearly half of his career, he has been litigating Local Joint Executive Board of Las Vegas v. NLRB.The case, colloquially known as Hacienda Hotel, concerns whether an employer must continue deducting union dues from employee paychecks after the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
In September, McCracken finally got the answer he’s been seeking since 1995. The 9th Circuit ruled that an employer must continue deducting dues during the negotiation of a new contract. At this point, the lawsuit is a matter of principle rather than practicality—the hotels from which the case arose, Hacienda Hotel and Sahara Hotel, were both sold in 1996.
