Hospitality workers in Las Vegas have voted to authorize a strike if their union does not reach a contract deal with dozens of hotels on the Las Vegas strip.
Thousands of workers attended the strike vote on Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV) campus. The union slogan headlining the event was: “One job should be enough.”
Of the 53,000 members, 95% voted in favor of authorizing the strike.
“Companies are generating record profits, and we demand that workers aren’t left behind and have a fair share of that success,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, in a statement.
“As companies reduce labor, there are less workers who have even more responsibilities and are doing more work instead of spending quality time with their families, and that has to change. Workers have built this industry and made it successful and that’s why we are demanding that workers share in that prosperity,” he said.
Pappageorge said the two sides were still “far apart” after months of negotiations with the largest three gaming companies in Las Vegas.
Among the asks from the union include “winning the largest wage increases ever negotiated in the history of the Culinary Union” amid high inflation rates in recent years, the high cost of living in Las Vegas, and furloughs during the beginning of the Covid pandemic that greatly affected hospitality workers.
The union is also pushing for reducing housekeeping workloads, mandating daily room cleaning, which was eliminated throughout much of the hotel industry during the pandemic, expanding safety protections for workers on the job, and adding clarifying language to a no-strike clause that gives casino workers the right to respect picket lines and does not prevent the union from taking action against non-union restaurants on casino properties.
“My job got so much harder since the pandemic and I’m in constant pain at work. When I get home I feel guilty that I don’t have energy to spend time with my son, help him with his homework, or even cook dinner some nights,” said Evangelina Alaniz, a guest room attendant at the Bellagio and a Culinary Union member for 18 years. “Often, I have to go to bed so I have enough strength to go to work the next day and serve the guests.”
The union has not yet set a strike deadline, but workers are currently working under expired contracts at 22 locations among MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn/Encore Resorts. Negotiations began in April, with contract extension agreed upon in June that expired in early September as the union noted a lack of substantial progress.
In 2018, 25,000 hospitality workers voted to authorize a strike, with contracts settled with employers soon after the vote.
