Posts tagged Culinary Workers Union
Encore Boston Harbor Unionization Continues as Cage Workers Join Teamsters
September 11, 2025 // Proponents of unions say collective bargaining leads to better pay and benefits for workers, and gives employees a stronger voice against management and ownership. Opponents claim unions harm businesses by raising costs, hindering productivity, limiting worker autonomy, and contributing to economic instability.
Union Leaders Get Tough With Democrats as Members Drift Toward Trump
August 11, 2025 // “Every time we talk politics, the first thing that comes up is, ‘The Democrats let us down,’” Jimmy Williams, the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, told The New York Times.
All major Las Vegas Strip casinos are now unionized in historic labor victory
August 5, 2025 // For 25 years, her employer, the Venetian, had resisted organizing efforts as one of the last holdouts on the Strip, locked in a prolonged standoff with the Culinary Workers Union. But a recent change in ownership opened the Venetian’s doors to union representation just as the Strip’s newest casino, the Fontainebleau, was also inking its first labor contract. The historic deals finalized late last year mark a major turning point: For the first time in the Culinary Union’s 90-year history, all major casinos on the Strip are unionized. Backed by 60,000 members, most of them in Las Vegas, it is the largest labor union in Nevada. Experts say the Culinary Union’s success is a notable exception in a national landscape where union membership overall is declining.
Las Vegas Convention Center Worker Slams Culinary Union and Sodexo with Federal Charges for Illegally Seizing Dues From Wages
March 12, 2025 // Employee maintains that both union and employer ignored requests to refrain from union membership and dues payments
Las Vegas hotel workers union ends 69-day strike
January 24, 2025 // The Culinary Workers Union announced on the social media platform X that it secured a five-year deal for about 700 employees at Virgin Hotels near the Las Vegas Strip. In a joint statement, the union and casino said they were ready to move past their disagreements “for the benefit of all team members at the property” after the 69-day strike that began November 15.
Today’s hospitality union battle is over wages. The next one might be about tech.
December 5, 2024 // The following year, the Culinary Union added language around technology adoption to its contract. In its contracts negotiated in 2023, the union “protected and expanded” that clause, Bethany Khan, a union spokesperson, told Hotel Dive. For members of the Culinary Union, their technology-related worries go beyond robot replacements — encompassing everything from workflow-optimizing apps to artificial intelligence. And while the union’s contract language offers protections around how technology is used at hotels, it does not prevent companies from deploying new technologies in the first place.
Strike by workers at a casino near the Las Vegas Strip enters 2nd day
November 18, 2024 // After the breakthrough deals last November, the Culinary Union quickly reached similar agreements for the rest of its members at major hotel-casinos on the Strip, downtown and at off-Strip properties — with the exception of Virgin Hotels. The contracts on the Strip alone cover more than 40,000 workers. While the union pays striking workers $500 per week for picketing shifts for at least five days, union members at the picket line on Friday said that they were expecting financial pain while being out of work.
This housekeeper fought to unionize Trump’s Vegas hotel. Now, she’s fighting to keep him out of office
November 5, 2024 // “It’s important for a president to be pro-union,” said Olvera. “Without a union, a worker invests the majority of their time at work only to find they can’t afford health care for their kids. They leave work tired, have to work two jobs, and still find that the money isn’t enough.”
A first: Chippendales at the Rio to unionize
October 10, 2024 // The Chipps move to Equity status could trigger a series of similar efforts in shows across Las Vegas. Such production companies as Cirque du Soleil, Spiegelworld and Adam Steck’s SPI Entertainment lineup (which has “Thunder” on its roster) are non-union. But none of these casts have formally moved to organize. Nationally, Equity also represents strip-club employees, and also Disneyland character performers. Las Vegas is rife with club performers, and atmospheric entertainers (Area15 is expanding by 35 acres, for instance), eligible to seek Equity status. Equity reps clearly want the Chipps show to serve as a toe-hold to increased membership across Las Vegas. So do the dancers who voted to organize.
Union reaches deal with 4 hotel-casinos, 3 others still poised to strike at start of Super Bowl week
February 6, 2024 // A union representing hospitality workers has reached a tentative agreement with four hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas as employees at three other properties remained poised to strike Monday when the city kicks off Super Bowl week.