Las Vegas: Culinary Workers Union Begins Talks

Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 4/9/2007

Of all the UNITE HERE local affiliates negotiating contracts with hotels this year, the one being watched the most closely could be Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union Local 226.

And with good reason: Currently claiming 60,000 members, the Culinary Union is the largest UNITE HERE affiliate in the country.

It's also located in a place that lives and dies by the hospitality business. According to the Nevada Resort Assn., as of 2000 (the most recent data available), the state's gaming industry employed nearly 250,000 people — approximately 26 percent of the total work force. NRA data also shows hotels occupying 11 spots on a list of the state's 15 largest employers.

Of the 11, only one, the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, isn't owned by MGM Mirage or Harrah's Entertainment. Both MGM and Harrah's have contracts with the Culinary Union — at least for now. (Las Vegas Sands, a non-union hotel, owns the Venetian.)

June 1 is the union's deadline for new contracts at the 39 hotels with which it currently has agreements. Union officials have already started negotiating with the hotels — and assembling the troops. On March 23, they staged a rally that featured three presidential hopefuls and, according to Local 226, drew about 7,000 members.

At the rally, one of them, John Cooper, a banquet cook at the Rio All-Suites Casino Hotel (a Harrah's property), told Tradeshow Week: "We believe in our union and our work. If we don't mean business, then we have nothing. Solidarity is the key to holding this together. We want to keep our dream, our benefits and continue to do a good job, the jobs we've been trained for."

The Las Vegas press has reported extensively on card check neutrality, claiming it could be a sticking point in the contract negotiation process. However, Local 226 Secretary-treasurer D. Taylor told TSW, "We've gotten no proposals from hotels that are opposed to it." He'd already met with MGM-Mirage at the time.

In Taylor's view, the most important issue is health care, followed by wages, pension, growth opportunities and housing for workers.

Despite some tough talk at the rally, Taylor doesn't seem poised to strike. "If we have to do some drastic action, we'll do that based on our timeline, and our workers will make that decision," he said. "Let's start with negotiations first."

Representatives of MGM Mirage, Harrah's Entertainment and Boyd Gaming, as well as the Nevada Hotel & Lodging Assn., the Nevada Resort Assn. and the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, all declined to comment on the situation when contacted by TSW.

American Hotel & Lodging Assn. President and CEO Joseph McInerney seemed to think a strike was unlikely. "I don't think they're going to kill the golden goose they have in Las Vegas," he said.

Pat Moreo agreed. He's the chair of the food and beverage department of the Harrah Hotel College at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "I suspect they're going to make this work," Moreo said.

That's good news for the meetings and exhibition business, which, as Taylor pointed out, depends on Culinary Union members to "take convention visitors' bags to the room, make their drinks, serve their drinks and food, and make the hotel and casinos function."

Sixty thousand fewer of these service people would undoubtedly be missed by the 18 shows scheduled in Las Vegas during the month of June, according to TSW research. The largest tradeshows among them are Reed Exhibitions' The JCK Show, Las Vegas, scheduled June 1–5 at Sands Expo & Convention Center/Venetian Resort Hotel Casino; and Randall-Reilly Publishing's The Truck Show, scheduled June 7–9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.