Las Vegas Strip hospitality workers union has bad news for casinos

The Las Vegas Strip is preparing for huge crowds coming to town for the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix Nov. 16-18, the CES Convention, presented by the Consumer Technology Association, Jan. 9-12, and the Super Bowl, which will stage various events leading up the game being played at Allegiant Stadium Feb. 11.

The F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix expects over 100,000 fans per day to attend the event, hotels are sold out for the weekend and restaurants are mostly booked solid as well. The CES Convention is expected to draw easily over 100,000 attendees and some hotels will sellout for the high-tech event.

Related: Las Vegas Strip brings surprise superstar legend for new venue

The Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee's President and CEO Sam Joffray says that 450,000 could flock to Vegas for Super Bowl Weekend, Sports Destination Management reported. The game's venue Allegiant Stadium holds 65,000 people, but Las Vegas sells out its hotel rooms on Super Bowl weekend anyway without hosting the game, Venues Now reported.

Without all the big events filling hotel rooms, the Strip is still busy with guests visiting its casinos and other entertainment including all the headliners and residencies at the casino theaters. With all of this activity lined up for Sin City over the next few months, the Strip's hotel casinos are facing a major disruption of their operations if they don't resolve a labor dispute in about a week.

Culinary union wants a five-year contract

Culinary Workers Union 226, which represents 35,000 hospitality workers employed by MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts, on Nov. 2 set a strike deadline for Nov. 10 at 5 a.m. Pacific time. If the parties do not reach an agreement by the deadline for a new five-year contract, the union says it will go on strike, which would be the largest hospitality worker strike in U.S. history.

The strike would affect 19 resort casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including eight MGM properties – Aria, Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, New York-New York and Park MGM – nine Caesars properties – Caesars Forum, Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Harrah's, Horseshoe, Paris, Planet Hollywood, The Cromwell and the Linq – and the Wynn and Encore Resorts, according to a union statement.

The parties have been negotiating for seven months and 95% of the union's workers on Sept. 26 voted to authorize a strike. The 35,000 workers employed by Caesars, MGM and Wynn have been working without a contract since Sept. 15. Culinary and Bartender Union workers on Oct. 12 picketed on the Strip in front of eight MGM and Caesars properties, and on Oct. 25, 75 culinary workers were arrested in a non-violent civil disobedience action in front of the Bellagio and Paris.

Union has several demands

The union has asked for the following things, among others, in negotiations.:

• The largest wage increase ever negotiated in the history of the Culinary Union.
• Reducing workload and steep housekeeping room quotas, mandating daily room cleaning, and establishing the right for guest room attendants to securely work in set areas.
• Providing the best on-the-job safety protections for all classifications, including safety committees, expanding the use of safety buttons to more workers, penalties if safety buttons don’t work, enforcing mandatory room checks for employee and public safety, and tracking sexual harassment, assault, and criminal behavior by customers.

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