🗞️ The Camera Doesn't Lie, But Withholding the Tape Does

When two housekeeping employees at Magic City Casino in Miami received documented verbal coaching following a September 2023 departmental meeting, their union, UNITE HERE Local 355, wanted to see for themselves what the casino's own cameras had captured. Management had already watched the footage. The union had not.

What followed was a months-long standoff that produced an unfair labor practice charge, a federal hearing, and ultimately a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board that the casino had broken the law.

The NLRB's decision in Gretna Racing, LLC d/b/a Magic City Casino, issued May 7, 2026, found that the casino violated Sections 8(a)(5) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to furnish the union with access to surveillance video directly relevant to an active grievance. The ruling, affirmed by a three-member Board panel, ordered the casino to allow the union and its designees, including shop stewards and the affected employees, to watch the video without precondition.

The case turns on a well-established but often-contested principle in labor law: an employer's duty to bargain in good faith includes providing a union with information it needs to perform its representational duties. That obligation, rooted in decades of NLRB precedent and affirmed by the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Truitt Manufacturing Co. (1956), is not easily avoided by claiming the information was not the decisive factor in a management decision.

The casino's primary defense was that because Housekeeping Manager Julio Paez relied on his own firsthand observation and had not viewed the video before issuing the verbal coaching, the recording fell outside the scope of what the union was entitled to receive. That argument did not hold. Human Resources Director Cross and HR Manager Perez-Ramos had both watched the video before participating in subsequent grievance meetings with the union. Perez-Ramos went further: when the union asked how management knew about the housekeepers' conduct, he described to union representatives what the footage showed, including one of the housekeepers striking her chest. Under long-standing Board doctrine, information pertaining to bargaining unit employees is presumptively relevant, and a union is not required to accept management's characterization of what the evidence does or does not establish.

The union's organizer, Daisy Mera, made the video request verbally at the October 20 Step 2 grievance meeting. After receiving the casino's Step 2 denial on November 3, she followed up in writing, asking management to advise when the video would be available to view as previously requested. On November 10, the casino denied the request again, stating the video had not been used in the discipline decision. Mera responded on November 13, disputing that characterization but making clear the union wanted the video regardless, and later that same day asked General Manager John Enriquez directly when the union could schedule time to watch it. She followed up again in writing the next day. The Board found that by November 13, 2023, the casino had unambiguous notice of the union's request and the full basis for it.

The casino also attempted a confidentiality defense, citing Florida's gaming regulations and pointing to confidentiality agreements signed by a prior union representative, David Assouline, in 2016 and 2018. Administrative Law Judge Sarah Karpinen found both arguments unpersuasive. The casino had never raised confidentiality as a ground for withholding the video during any of its many denials — it repeatedly cited only the video's purported lack of relevance to the discipline decision — and Board precedent requires such a defense to be raised in the initial response to an information request to carry legal weight. The state regulation the casino cited, Florida Administrative Code Section 75-14.054, restricts unauthorized access to surveillance systems, not the act of permitting someone to view footage in a designated viewing room. The casino's own internal procedures already allowed non-surveillance directors and managers to watch footage under controlled conditions, which the judge found undermined the argument that the same access could not be extended to union representatives.

One additional wrinkle: by the time the case reached a hearing, the verbal coaching issued to both employees had become null and void under the parties' collective bargaining agreement, which provides for the removal of discipline from an employee's file after nine months. One of the two housekeepers had also left the casino's employ, and the union withdrew that grievance. The Board nonetheless found the information request was not moot, as a grievance on behalf of the remaining employee was still pending and the union had not abandoned it. The timeliness of that grievance, the Board noted, was a matter for an arbitrator to resolve, not the Board.

Key Points

• The NLRB found that Magic City Casino violated federal labor law by refusing to allow the union to view surveillance footage relevant to disciplinary grievances filed on behalf of two bargaining unit housekeeping employees.
• Housekeeping Manager Paez issued the verbal coaching based on his own firsthand observation and never viewed the video, but Human Resources personnel watched the footage and described its contents during subsequent grievance meetings with the union.
• Under Section 8(a)(5) of the NLRA, information pertaining to bargaining unit employees is presumptively relevant, and an employer cannot avoid disclosure simply by asserting the information was not the stated basis for a disciplinary decision.
• A confidentiality defense must be raised in the employer's initial response to an information request; the casino raised it only after the complaint was filed, which the Board found untimely and legally insufficient.
• The Florida gaming regulation the casino cited governs access to surveillance systems, not supervised viewing of footage in a designated viewing room, and did not support the casino's refusal.
• Although the verbal coaching issued to both employees had become null and void under the collective bargaining agreement's nine-month removal provision, and the union withdrew the grievance for the employee who had left the casino, the Board found the information request was not moot because a grievance on behalf of the remaining employee was still active.
• The casino is required to allow the union and its designees, including stewards and the affected employees, to watch the requested surveillance video without the precondition of signing a confidentiality agreement.

Sources

Primary Source Author: Sarah Karpinen, Administrative Law Judge; affirmed by Chairman James R. Murphy and Members David M. Prouty and Scott A. Mayer

Primary Source: Gretna Racing, LLC d/b/a Magic City Casino, 374 NLRB No. 106 (May 7, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/12-CA-331395

Supplemental References:

• NLRB: Interfering with Employee Rights, Sections 7 and 8(a)(1)
• NLRB: Employer Duty to Provide Information to Unions, Section 8(a)(5)
• Union Information Requests: What Employers Should Know Before Saying "No"
• Are You Required to Provide Confidential Information to Your Union?
• D.C. Circuit Enforces NLRB Board Order on Information Request (January 2026)