Could a Las Vegas strike resemble the one in Southern California?

As Culinary Local 226 workers on the Las Vegas Strip prepare to strike if deals are not reached with casino resorts, they can look to an affiliated union for lessons and strategies.

Workers in Unite Here Local 11, representing 15,000 hotel workers in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California, have been conducting rolling work stoppages at various properties since their strike kicked off in July. Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of Culinary Local 226, said the strike actions in California — and in other industries across the country — have similar sentiments to the labor activity in Las Vegas.

“They have our complete support,” Pappageorge said this week of Unite Here 11’s strike. “They’re dealing with the same thing in L.A. that we’re dealing with in Las Vegas, that workers deal with in Boston and Chicago and Miami and New York and Topeka, Kansas. The reality is that workers are really concerned that these massive corporations and private equity-infused operations are just going to leave workers behind. What’s different is that workers have said, coming out of the pandemic, ‘We’re not going to do it.’”

Cooks, bellmen, servers, housekeepers, dishwashers and front desk agents at some 60 hotel properties in Los Angeles and Orange counties — including some owned by large chains such as Marriott and Hilton — are calling for better wages, improved health care, higher pension contributions, better safety protections and lower workloads, among other demands.

Las Vegas hospitality workers have similar points to negotiate over. The Culinary union has called for “the largest wage increases ever negotiated in the history” of the union, reduced workloads for housekeepers, on-the-job safety protections and extended recall rights.

Negotiations continue between Culinary and the Strip’s three largest employers. The union said it will set a strike deadline — the next step toward walkouts — if a deal is not reached this week.

Local 11 leaders have said they chose a sporadic strike method — as opposed to a continuous strike — to “keep the hotels on their toes and guessing,” Kurt Petersen, the local’s co-president, told the Los Angeles Times over the summer.

In Southern Nevada, Culinary leaders have said that any strike action that could occur would be continuous until a deal is reached. A possible strike would begin at roughly 20 of the biggest properties on the Strip, such as MGM Resorts International’s Bellagio, Caesars Entertainment’s eponymous palace and Wynn Las Vegas.

“These are not work actions or one-day strikes or any of that stuff,” Pappageorge told the media at the Sept. 26 strike authorization vote. “Our history has been a history of long, nasty strikes if necessary to win. If there is a strike called, it will be an open-ended strike until we get a contract, like the Teamsters, like the United Auto Workers, like the writers and the actors (in the double Hollywood strike).”

L.A.’s hotel strike continues into its fourth month with little public progress for most of the properties. Two area hotels have reached settlements with their workers: the Westin Bonaventure averted the strike by reaching an agreement as the contracts were set to expire June 30, while workers at the Biltmore Los Angeles announced a tentative deal last Friday.

McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.