LAS VEGAS: The longest attack in years by Las Vegas hotel staff ended Wednesday with a new agreement between the coalition and a game where hundreds of employees had walked off the work in November.
The culinary staff coalition announced on the social media platform X that it secured a five-year package for around 700 people at Virgin Hotels near the Las Vegas Strip. In a joint statement, the coalition and game said they were ready to move past their conflicts” for the benefit of all staff members at the home” after the 69-day attack that began November 15.
Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for the coalition, said the deal came up in recent days and was approved universally Wednesday by the government’s rank-and-file. That brings an end to the extensive and highly controversial lease agreements that had stalled in the public spotlight because of disagreements over spend.
The government’s earlier deal with Virgin Hotels expired in June 2023. The new another possible contains important spend raises similar to what the rest of the government’s people on the Strip, city and at other off-Strip properties have gotten in the last year. That includes what the union has described as a traditional 32 per cent increase in wages over five years, an volume Virgin Hotels had said isn’t “economically practical” for the casino’s potential.
But throughout the strike, Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer and lead negotiator, repeatedly said workers at Virgin Hotels would not settle for a” second-class contract. “
Lee McNamara, a cook who has worked there for more than 25 years, told Clark County commissioners in early December that they deserved to be paid a living wage like their counterparts at other casinos.
” We’re doing the same amount of work for less pay,” he said. ” We are literally the lowest-paid union casino as it stands right now. “
Even though Virgin Hotels isn’t located on the Strip, the strike was still highly visible to tourists. For months the union maintained around-the-clock picket lines outside the hotel-casino that’s within walking distance of the Strip and along a common route between the main tourist corridor and the city’s international airport.
Workers also blocked traffic at one point during the strike in what they said was an effort to bring attention to the labor issues at the casino, resulting in arrests.
Throughout the strike, the union publicly criticized Virgin Hotels for hiring temporary workers who crossed the picket line, a comedian canceled his show in support of the union and the NFL players association pledged to boycott the casino while workers were on strike.
Employees on the picket line included housekeepers, porters, bellhops and servers. Some said they were willing to stay on the picket line for as long as it takes, even if it meant getting a second job until a new contract was ratified.
” I’m ready to go for as long as I need to, and I’m pretty sure that’s how everyone else is feeling too,” Michael Renick, a bartender who has worked at Virgin Hotels for about two years, told The Associated Press.
The union last went on strike in 2002, when employees at the Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas stopped working for 10 days. It is the largest labor union in Nevada with about 60,000 members statewide. Most of them are in Las Vegas.
