Rory Kuykendall, 40, said he is hopeful that Tuesday’s vote will have the same effect.

Five-year contracts were reached soon after a majority of the participating 25,000 hospitality workers cast votes to walk off the job. The union last voted to authorize a strike in 2018. The union said all the strikers returned to their jobs afterward, with back pay and benefits. It became one of the longest strikes in U.S.

In 1991, more than 500 workers went on strike at the now-shuttered Frontier hotel and casino in downtown Las Vegas. Khan declined to say how much the union is seeking in pay raises because “we do not negotiate in public,” although the union has said it is asking for “the largest wage increases ever negotiated” in its history. “There are a lot of us who have two jobs, but one job should be enough.”īethany Khan, the union’s spokesperson, said all members receive health insurance and currently earn about $26 hourly, including benefits. “There’s no telling where I would be if I didn’t have the support of my daughter,” Virgil said. Virgil, who has worked in the hospitality sector for 38 years, said she is able to make do with her current salary and benefits because she lives with her adult daughter. In a statement Tuesday night, MGM Resorts said it has a decades-long history of successfully bargaining with the union and believes that “both parties are committed to negotiating a contract that is good for everyone.”Ĭaesars did not respond to emailed requests for comment, and Wynn Resorts said they had no comment. The union is scheduled to return to the bargaining table next week with MGM Resorts, Caesars and Wynn Resorts. Virgil was among 53,000 housekeepers, cocktail and food servers, porters, cooks, bartenders and other hotel employees in Las Vegas eligible to participate in the vote. “We are the glue that keeps these hotels together, and we should be paid what we deserve,” Deanna Virgil, a longtime employee at Wynn Las Vegas, told The Associated Press after casting her vote. Contracts for 40,000 of those members recently expired. In Nevada, the Culinary Union is the largest labor union, representing about 60,000 hospitality workers statewide. Workers calling for higher wages, better conditions and job security, especially since the end of the pandemic, have been increasingly willing to walk out on the job as employers face a greater need for workers.

Earlier this year, UPS reached a new deal before a work stoppage that could have significantly disrupted the nation’s supply chain.

Review journal strike casinos workers