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Workers are seeking a pay raise and benefits comparable to pacts
reached last year at other resorts.
The walkout by about 700 Culinary Workers Union laborers at
Virgin Hotels Las Vegas comes a week before the second annual
Las Vegas Grand Prix is due to draw hundreds of thousands of
fans for Formula 1 racing on the Strip and nearby streets. It's
the first open-ended strike since 2002 for the largest labor
union in Nevada, which has about 60,000 members.
No new negotiations were scheduled, said union spokesperson
Bethany Khan and Terri Maruca, media representative for Virgin
Hotels, owner of the 1,500-room property.
Maruca said the company has fielded applications from more than
600 prospective contract and temporary workers since Friday. The
union pays striking workers $500 per week for at least five days
for picketing shifts.
Guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, bartenders,
laundry and kitchen workers are among workers represented by the
Culinary Union at the property, where the union also staged a
48-hour job action last May to call for Virgin Hotels to agree
to a new five-year deal with expanded benefits and increased
wages.
The company reached a contract agreement last week with 105
members of the Teamsters Union, including front desk, valet and
call center workers, Maruca said.
Other casinos on and off the Strip reached agreements with the
union just before the Formula 1 race a year ago, with contracts
containing salary increases of about 32% over five years for
tens of thousands of workers at properties including the
Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas, MGM Grand and Caesars Palace.
In a statement on Sunday, Virgin Hotels called those contracts
“economically unsustainable” and said it wants a “reasonable
agreement” for its 1,710 employees. It has accused union leaders
of refusing to engage in "meaningful negotiations.”
Culinary Union members last went on strike in 2002 for 10 days
at the Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas.
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