Members of Las Vegas’ Culinary and Bartenders unions have voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike in the event the unions and the city’s casino hotels can’t agree on a new contract.
Some 25,000 members of the two locals of the national labor union UNITE HERE participated in the vote, which resulted in 99 percent endorsing a walkout if necessary, according to news reports.
The current five-year contract, which expires at midnight on May 31, covers some 50,000 workers at 34 resorts, including hotel room attendants, bartenders and cocktail servers, food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks and kitchen personnel.
“A strike is a last resort. We want to come to an agreement,” said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union.
The unions’ concerns include employee safety, sexual harassment, subcontracting, automation, immigration and a fairer share of corporate profits through salary increases and other benefits.
“We’ve been in negotiations with the companies, and they are not giving the workers what they deserve according to the economy right now,” Arguello-Kline said. “They are very successful. They have a lot of money.”
MGM Resorts International, one of the city’s largest operators, characterized the strike vote as “an expected part of the process”.
“We are confident that we can resolve the outstanding contract issues and will come to an agreement that works for all sides.”
Caesars Entertainment, another major operator, released a statement saying it expects to reach an agreement with the unions “on or about June 1”.
The union last voted for a strike in 2002 but reached a deal before employees walked out. The last strike, in 1984, spanned a crippling 67 days and cost workers an estimated $75 million in wages and millions more in lost revenue for the casinos.
