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The workers are represented by local chapters of the Culinary Union and the Bartenders Union, separate organizations that traditionally negotiate together. The unions are not just large, representing about 60,000 workers in Nevada, but have traditionally played an important role in political organizing as well.
“If these gaming companies don’t come to an agreement, the workers have spoken and we will be ready to do whatever it takes — up to and including a strike,” Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for Culinary Union Local 226, said in a statement.
It’s possible that both sides could reach an agreement that averts a walkout. The union didn’t set a strike deadline, and Pappageorge emphasized that further negotiations are scheduled next week with the city’s three largest employers: MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn/Encore Resorts.
Brian Ahern, a spokesperson for MGM Resorts, said the company has a decades-long history of bargaining successfully with unions. “We continue to have productive meetings with the union and believe both parties are committed to negotiating a contract that is good for everyone,” Ahern said.
The strike authorization passed by an overwhelming 95 percent vote and would cover some of the best-known casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. It comes amid a wave of labor activism, including an autoworker strike against the Big Three automakers and a walkout of Hollywood actors and writers. The Writers Guild of America announced Tuesday that writers will return to work Wednesday, after it reached a compromise with the studios.
If the hospitality workers proceed with a strike, it would be their first in more than four decades. The last time the Culinary Union walked out, in 1991, 500 workers at the Frontier casino spent more than six years on strike, eventually resulting in a contract. A larger strike in 1984 involved more than 17,000 workers from 32 resorts along the Las Vegas Strip.
The union is focusing on bread-and-butter issues such as pay and benefits as well as pushing for measures that protect workers from changes brought about by new technology. It said its latest proposal includes “the largest wage increases ever negotiated in the history of the culinary union” and a reduction of workload and room quotas for housekeepers.
In addition, the union wants to expand the distribution of “safety buttons” to more workers, allowing them to call for help when in a dangerous situation, and seeks stronger guarantees that workers will be given advance notice when the company introduces a new technology that could affect jobs as well as extra relevant job training.
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