Dive Brief:
- Las Vegas resorts avoided a strike today, with all resorts where a Feb. 2 strike deadline had been set reaching tentative agreements with union workers, according to the Culinary and Bartenders Unions, known collectively as the Culinary Union.
- Workers at 16 additional properties have won raises and contract improvements similar to those their fellow union members won at the “Big 3” Vegas resort operators in November.
- Amid negotiations, however, the Culinary Union pushed its Feb. 2 strike deadline back to Feb. 5 for a handful of downtown Las Vegas resorts where negotiations are ongoing. If tentative agreements aren’t reached at those properties, as many as 3,600 workers could walk out as soon as Monday, the same week the city is slated to host Super Bowl LVIII.
Dive Insight:
With a tentative agreement for a new five-year contract reached in eleventh-hour negotiations at Sahara Las Vegas — and strike deadlines for other Las Vegas properties moved to Monday — Las Vegas resorts avoided walkouts today.
In early January, the Culinary Union set a Feb. 2 strike deadline for 21 Las Vegas resorts. Since then, the union has won improved wages and contracts for its workers at 16 of those properties, including the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas, Circus Circus and Trump Hotel Las Vegas.
A union spokesperson told Hotel Dive that the contract terms negotiated are similar to those won in November at MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts, which gave 40,000 workers their highest-ever negotiated wage increases.
Earlier this week, the union pushed its strike deadline to Feb. 5 for resorts in downtown Las Vegas as well as at Rio and Virgin Las Vegas on the Strip. Workers plan to picket on Friday and Saturday outside all remaining resorts where contracts have not been settled, according to the Culinary Union.
Meanwhile, members of the Culinary Union’s affiliate union, Unite Here, continue to hold multihotel strikes in Southern California — though many of the hotels where walkouts took place have since reached contract agreements with workers.
