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Downtown Casinos Prepare for Strike

LAS VEGAS -- Seven downtown casinos are getting ready for a strike by the properties' maids and food service workers, the properties' lawyer said Tuesday.

"It would be irresponsible given the public comments of the union leadership for the downtown owners not to prepare for a strike," lawyer Gregg Kamer said. "If there were a strike, each one of the properties fully intends to continue operations."

Kamer represents the Plaza, El Cortez, Las Vegas Club, Western, Binion's Horseshoe, Fitzgeralds and the Four Queens in ongoing contract negotiations with Culinary Workers Local 226 and Bartender's Local 165.

Union officials extended until July 1 the existing contracts for the 17 properties that haven't yet agreed to new deals. The move came after major Strip operators reached tentative deals before their contracts expired last Friday.

Kamer said union officials have made it clear that July 1 is the final date to reach agreement on a new contract.

John Wilhelm, president of the Culinary's parent international union and Local 226's lead negotiator, questioned Kamer's negotiating strategy.

"Mr. Kamer's incendiary rhetoric is really quite contrary to the interests of his clients," Wilhelm said Tuesday. "I'm very disappointed in Mr. Kamer."

Union members are beginning their own strike preparations, Culinary political director Glen Arnodo said.

About 1,500 members of the United Auto Workers, in Las Vegas for a convention, are slated to join Culinary members for a Saturday rally on Fremont Street.

"You're going to see a flurry of activity over the next few weeks as strike preparations begin in earnest," Arnodo said.

A tent will be erected on a parking lot at Culinary headquarters to house crews making picket signs and stike shacks, he said. The operation is slated to begin on June 18.

As the July 1 strike deadline approaches, downtown casino owners plan to meet with their employees, including union members, to let them know that in the event of a strike workers have the right to cross picket lines set up by striking workers.

"We would hope the employees would come in," Kamer said. "But we'd move employees from other jobs in the hotels, and there are vast numbers of people looking for work, and they'd certainly hire replacement workers."

A strike would hurt downtown casino revenues, Kamer conceded, but noted that the loss would be offset by a corresponding drop in wages and union benefit payments.

Kamer identified several possible compromises that could avert a strike, such as:

-- Union members and their leaders could recognize that downtown economics are different from Strip realities and accept a loss costly health-care plan.

-- Union officials could lobby state government for a downtown gaming tax break, a prospect Kamer thinks unlikely given the state's budget crunch.

-- Union officials and trustees of their health plans could allow downtown properties to pay less into the unions' health and welfare funds, in effect letting the major Strip properties subsidize downtown workers' coverage.

"We're not crying poor," Kamer said. "We are poor."

That's the message the lawyer plans to deliver at Friday's scheduled meetings with union negotiating committees from the seven downtown properties.

"We're opening our books and our hearts," Kamer said. "We'll tell them the story, and show them our numbers are real. Then we'll work on a solution."

Wilhelm said the union's downtown workers understand the market isn't as prosperous as the Strip.

"The union and its downtown membership have always taken into reasonable account the economic challenges faced by downtown hotels," said Wilhelm. "But we have said from the beginning that we're going to negotiate one health plan for our members. Nothing has changed."

For the two sides to reach a deal, union leaders would have to back down from that commitment, Kamer said.

"They've got to move toward our position," Kamer said. "We can't afford to move very far toward theirs."

He wants downtown workers to realize that although the property owners can't afford the Strip contract, which would cost operators $3.23 per hour worked by the final year of the five-year pact.

"The union has to make a conscious decision that this is no longer a one-contract town," Kamer said.

Asked the odds of a strike against his clients' properties, Kamer stuck with the gambling theme.

"This is Las Vegas, and I'm not going to bet against myself and my ability to help forge a solution. But the union needs to compromise."

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