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Unions Push For Strike Vote Turnout

LAS VEGAS --Union organizers are hoping to draw at least 15,000 members to a scheduled Thursday vote that could authorize Las Vegas' first citywide casino strike since 1984.

Representatives of the 45,000-member Culinary Local 226 and the 2,300-member Bartenders Local 165 have been working for weeks to persuade people to attend the morning or evening sessions at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Activists have employed a variety of techniques to turn out their rank and file, including informational meetings in employee break rooms, as well as mailings and phone calls to members' homes.

The Culinary, which represents about half of the Strip workforce, has also purchased time on a local radio station, KLAV-AM 1230, to air 30-minute, pro-Culinary programs during the past two weeks.

"I think the companies are going to be surprised at the number who show up," said state Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, who is a union shop steward and Treasure Island waitress. "I honestly don't think they realize how many people are angry with them."

A pro-strike vote would give union leaders the authority to call a work stoppage after contracts expire May 31 at 35 Las Vegas-area casinos.

Organizers are seeking a two-year deal that would see employers pay an additional $1.45-an-hour in wages and benefits for each union member, with the bulk of the money going to the unions' health insurance program, which is battling rapidly rising expenses. The city's gaming companies currently pay the cost of health insurance premiums for the unions' members.

Culinary negotiators are also asking for reduced workloads for the estimated 9,000 housekeepers, who fill the largest job title represented by the union.

Executives of the city's biggest casino companies argue that the requests are financially excessive, especially in light of the travel decline that plagued Las Vegas after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the Northeast. While on the rebound, many of the city's gaming properties continue to report revenue and profit declines from a year ago.

In recent days there has been private talk of an emerging split between the city's big four Strip operators, with sources saying executives of MGM Mirage and Mandalay Resort Group are taking a tougher stance in their union negotiations than their counterparts at Park Place Entertainment and Harrah's Entertainment.

On Thursday, Park Place executives offered an estimated $1-an-hour raise in benefits and wages for each union member over 2 and a half years, sources say. Union leaders could offer a counterproposal on Tuesday.

Executives of Harrah's, which owns and operates Harrah's Las Vegas and the Rio, met Saturday with their union counterparts.

Details of the day's bargaining session were not available Saturday evening, but the company's negotiating team was expected to offer a wage and benefit increase similar to Park Place's, angering at least one executive at a rival company.

"Harrah's has no presence in this town, just two little places," said the executive, who asked not to be identified. "If they can drive up the labor costs of their principal competitors that doesn't hurt very much."

Representatives of MGM Mirage and Mandalay Resort, which are negotiating jointly, were expected to offer less than the Park Place package while suggesting that some of the money the unions are seeking be transferred from the Culinary's pension fund, which apparently has generated healthy financial returns in recent years.

"The issue to us that's most compelling during the negotiations is cost," Mandalay Resort Group President and Chief Financial Officer Glenn Schaeffer said in a Wednesday conference call with institutional investors. "We think that the proposal on the part of the union does not reflect what the cost would be to administer that (health insurance) fund going forward."

Yet a Mandalay Resort Group competitor said there is no surprise in what the unions are seeking.

The executive said the union told companies up front that its priorities included protecting health care and cutting the number of rooms housekeepers must clean every day.

"It's not like any of the issues are new to anybody," said the executive, who asked not to be identified.

Union leaders expect to attend a Wednesday meeting of the governor's tax panel to discuss the potential impact of a strike on state and local tax revenues.

Organizers might also hold a Strip rally Memorial Day weekend that could draw thousands of angry union members during a prime tourism weekend.

But for now they say the focus is Thursday's scheduled strike vote and the unions' goal of drawing at least 15,000 people to the meetings.

"There is power in numbers," said Culinary political director Glen Arnodo. "It will demonstrate unequivocally to management that these issues are important to the workers. They should understand that anyway, but I think if they don't understand that now they will understand it then."

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