Culinary Union: Prepared for battle

Thanks for joining us, Ted. To start off with, could you explain the ongoing disputes with Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas?

Well, we had a round of contract negotiations with the majority of companies that are Strip properties, including two different strike deadlines, since the contracts expired on June 1 2023 with three of the larger employers: MGM, Caesars and Wynn Resorts. We had a strike deadline with them set for November 11 2024 but were able to thankfully reach settlements with each. Then, there are the independent operators that are considered Strip properties such as Virgin Hotels. Virgin are unique because they had some financial issues, but they’ve got a great management team. They’re turning things around, and they’re going to be just fine financially.

We, and the workers on the negotiating committee, felt it was best to give them more time as they did a financial restructuring in June. We conducted a two-day strike in May to try to shake things loose, but Virgin took a different track from every other employer in Las Vegas we had dealt with. They proposed zero wage increases for a five-year contract, with a reopen to discuss possible wage increases in only the fourth and fifth year. They then publicly put out a final offer to the press which included no wage increases at all in the first three years, and little chance of renegotiation in the short term. We tried to negotiate again in July but to no avail and, unfortunately, it does seem like we are headed for a strike at Virgin.

The workers are 100% united and we’ve attempted to see if there’s some sort of leeway or significant concessions on the table to try and get them moving. Now we’re in the process of making sure its customers know this property is an outlier from the rest of the industry. We’re doing outreach to customers of Virgin since they’re a big partner with Formula One. And we are going to make sure the Formula One patrons understand that this is the only property left in Las Vegas in the Strip area we’re having this kind of dispute with!

Was the picket line at Virgin Hotel, which resulted in a number of workers being arrested, authorized by the Culinary Union?

Yes, we wanted to send a point to the customers of Virgin and also the Virgin management that our workers are serious. We held a two-day strike in May, where virtually 99.9% of the workers participated. At this point, we’re 15-plus months after the expiration date, and I think the workers have been extremely patient with this company that is going to be doing well financially.

They brought somewhere north of $750m to purchase and renovate the Virgin Hotel – and we believe that’s a great thing. These big Wall Street banks, they bring money and run over workers everywhere else. But in Vegas, it’s different. We’re 100% Union on the Strip and if you bring money to renovate or buy the place, you have to bring money for the workers, too. Virgin is trying to get out of that and have the workers carry the burden. What they’re proposing is just unacceptable.

How do you think these strikes help put pressure on the properties where you’re yet to reach agreements?

It’s a way of notifying the customers that there are 45 other venues in Las Vegas you can take your money to. There’s a significant amount of customer base that comes to Las Vegas that is supportive of the workers in Las Vegas. We don’t have a hard time convincing folks to take their money elsewhere. This [Virgin’s proposal] is just so far below anything any other company has even proposed. It’s the worst we’ve seen in 30 years here in Las Vegas. We believe we’ve got some outside financial institutions that are under the impression they’re going to take advantage of workers in Las Vegas and that’s not going to happen.

On a more positive note, how has the situation with Venetian played out since you reached a tentative contract agreement?

Well that’s extremely exciting for the workers at the Venetian, but also for us. There was a previous owner who had been more anti-Union thinking, but he passed away and the family chose to sell. Luckily, the new company made a decision to sign what we call a ‘card check neutrality agreement.’

The labor laws here in Las Vegas really favor companies since they allow them to essentially break the law by intimidating, firing, harassing and bribing workers with very little repercussions. That’s not how we built our Union in this city. We fight with these companies in every possible way until we get a card check neutrality agreement. If an arbitrator rules that the majority of properties have done it, others begin to recognize Unions and bargains as well. That’s what happened at the Venetian. The company did the right thing and they decided to be in partnership with their workers. For the first time in 25 years, those workers have had the opportunity to have their own voice with a Union contract set in place. It’s been tremendous; we have a great partner in the Venetian and the ownership team that’s there right now. We are extremely proud of the contract.

What does it mean to the Union to finally end that 25-year streak of not having an agreement with Venetian?

It was quite emotional, we’ve been battling with Venetian ownership for decades now, so it’s a huge victory for workers in Las Vegas overall. We only have one company left, Station Casinos, which has fired, harassed and threatened workers; they’ve broken every law in the book. We’re in the middle of the largest labor law case, we think, in the history of the US. We have 40 trial days scheduled just for the rest of this year and some into next year.

We’re going to keep pressing after lawbreakers, historic lawbreakers. At the same time, they’re going to be feeling awfully lonely because they’re really the last ones left that contain anti-Union ideology here in Las Vegas. So we’re very proud of the Venetian and we’re going to figure out the Virgin Hotel dispute one way or another. Those workers are going to go on strike, and we will fight them until we get a good, standard contract that they deserve. In regards to Station Casinos, we’re going to take them on for as long as it takes; we’re never going to walk away from those workers. They deserve what everybody else has in Las Vegas.

Would you mind explaining the ongoing dispute at the Evolution office in the country of Georgia right now? Will the Union assist?

What we believe is we have the ability to support workers in any situation like that. We’re certainly far away, but it’s a global phenomenon right now. We think that, here in the US, we have the ability to affect companies which don’t provide good working conditions. I don’t think we’ve really exerted our leverage as much as we possibly could in the past so, when we were asked to help, the Union saw it as a great opportunity. We’re prepared to continue to assist those workers until conditions improve in Georgia.

How would the Union go about supporting workers here in the US compared to internationally, such as the situation in Georgia?

What we’ve done in the past is have workers travel from Brazil, Mexico, Cambodia, Europe, etc. all the way to the US. We send workers there for solidarity actions and to ensure the people in those areas know they’re not alone.

It’s really the only way to beat these giant corporations. The thing is, a lot of these corporations are global now, or they have global connections. That gives us the ability to broadcast injustices in a big way which didn’t exist as much before.

Take the companies we mentioned before – MGM, Caesars, Wynn Resorts – they’re all over the world and continuously attempting to grow. If they want to be good partners, we’re going to back them up. In the event they aren’t good partners, then there is this global network we are now participating in, which has been able to put pressure on these companies, and we’re going to continue to utilize that.

Kirk Geller

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