As the Nevada gaming and hospitality industry continues to grapple with labor shortages related to the Covid-9 pandemic, the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union, a local affiliate of UNITE HERE, has approved an app created by Goodwrx that directs temporary workers to jobs paying culinary and bartender union wages and benefits.
The app finds shift-based or long-term W-2 work governed by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by Culinary Local 226 and Bartenders Union 165, providing a set union wage scale, health care benefits and other protections.
In the app, temporary workers can accrue hours toward eligibility to receive a pension through the Culinary Pension and union health care through the Culinary Health Fund, according to a press release from the Culinary Union. Temp workers can also obtain part-time or full-time status with employers as soon as positions open up.
“Culinary Union has created a strong middle class in Nevada in nearly nine decades, and our union has a long proven track record of making sure no worker is left behind ,whether full-time, part-time, or temporary,” Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, said in the release.
“The Culinary Union will not allow workers to be discarded as there isn’t a shortage of workers, there is a shortage of good jobs with benefits and wages and that’s why the Culinary and Bartenders Unions negotiated with covered employers and Goodwrx for temporary employees to get strong union wages, health care benefits, and protections.”
Other benefits include paid lunch and on-the-clock breaks, protections against sexual harassment or discrimination and access to unemployment insurance through contributions made by Goodwrx.
“Goodwrx is an exciting solution to protect temp workers like me,” Dean Vassil, a bartender, said in the release. “Temp workers don’t typically have the protections that union workers have such as job security, health care benefits, grievance procedure, or protections from owners or operators’ change, so I’m happy to see that I can get flexible work, am better protected on the job, and have access to good union benefits.”
