Threat of strike on Las Vegas Strip over as union agrees deal with hotel owners
The Culinary Workers Union reached an agreement with Wynn Resorts hours before industrial action was about to start.
After a marathon week of negotiations, the Las Vegas hotel workers union said it had reached a tentative deal with Wynn Resorts.
It was the last contract the Culinary Workers Union needed to avoid a strike on Friday.
The new five-year contract covers employees at the company’s flagship hotel-casino and Encore Resorts.
The deal came early on Friday after the union’s tentative deals earlier in the week with Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts.
The contract came after seven months of bargaining and is their first since the pandemic.
By dawn on Friday, the union had secured tentative labour deals with MGM Resorts, Caesars and Wynn Resorts, narrowly averting a sweeping strike at 18 hotel-casinos along the Strip.
Agreements with MGM and Caesars – the Strip’s two largest employers – came earlier in the week, while the agreement with Wynn Resorts was announced just a few hours before the strike deadline.
In a statement, Wynn Resorts said it was pleased to reach an agreement that “fulfills our shared goal of providing outstanding benefits and overall compensation to our employees in a work environment that is second to none”.
The agreement covers employees at the company’s flagship hotel-casino and Encore Resorts.
Terms of the deals were not immediately released, but the union said in its statement the proposed five-year contracts will provide workers with historic wage increases, reduced workloads and other unprecedented wins – including mandated daily room cleanings.
Before the pandemic, daily room cleanings were routine. Hotel guests could expect fresh bedsheets and new towels by dinnertime if a “Do Not Disturb” sign was not hanging on their hotel room doors.
But as social distancing became commonplace in 2020, hotels began to cut back on room cleanings.
More than three years later, the once industry-wide standard has yet to make a full comeback. Some companies say it is because there are environmental benefits to offering fewer room cleanings, like saving water.
MGM Resorts and Caesars did not respond on Thursday to emailed requests for comment about the issue.
A spokesman for Wynn Resorts said they already offer daily room cleanings and did not cut back on that service during the pandemic.
Ted Pappageorge, chief contract negotiator for the Culinary Workers Union, had said that without mandatory room cleaning “the jobs of tens of thousands of workers are in jeopardy of cutbacks and reduction”.
