About 25,000 members of the Culinary Union who work at 34 different casino-resorts across the tourist destination cast ballots in two sessions this week, showing the collective power of the largest labor organization in Nevada. The move hands union negotiators a huge bargaining chip as they work to solidify new five-year contracts.
Workers directly involved in the city’s fundamental activity of gambling – such as croupiers or poker dealers – are not involved in the talks.
Workers with roles critical to making a big casino-cum-hotels run, such as bartenders, housekeepers, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks and other kitchen workers are at the heart of it. Industrial action would affect properties on the famous Strip, including Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Stratosphere, The D and El Cortez.
The union last voted for a strike in 2002 but reached a deal before employees walked out. The last strike, in 1984, spanned 67 days and cost the city and workers tens of millions of dollars.
“I’m here to show the younger generations that this is the way we fight to maintain our jobs, job security, health benefits and to gain a pay raise,” Lewis Thomas, a utility porter at the Tropicana casino-hotel, said.
The contracts of 50,000 unionized workers are set to expire at midnight on 31 May, and negotiations with individual casino-operating companies have not led to agreements for new terms.
Union officials have said they want to increase wages, protect job security against the increasing use of technology at hotel-casinos, and strengthen procedures to combat sexual harassment.
Source: GMB / The Guardian / Associated Press
