Las Vegas hotel workers union reaches deal with casino to end longest strike in decades

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The longest strike in decades by Las Vegas hotel workers ended Wednesday with a new contract between the union and a casino where hundreds of employees had walked off the job in November.

The Culinary Workers Union announced on the social media platform X that it secured a five-year deal for about 700 employees at Virgin Hotels near the Las Vegas Strip. In a joint statement, the union and casino said they were ready to move past their disagreements “for the benefit of all team members at the property" after the 69-day strike that began Nov. 15.

Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for the union, said the deal came together in recent days and was approved unanimously Wednesday by the union's rank-and-file. That brings an end to the lengthy and highly contentious contract negotiations that had stalled in the public spotlight because of disagreements over pay.

The union’s previous contract with Virgin Hotels expired in June 2023. The new one likely contains significant pay raises similar to what the rest of the union's members on the Strip, downtown and at other off-Strip properties have gotten in the last year. That includes what the union has described as a historic 32% increase in wages over five years, an amount Virgin Hotels had said isn't “economically viable” for the casino's future.

But throughout the strike, Ted Pappageorge, the union's secretary-treasurer and lead negotiator, repeatedly said workers at Virgin Hotels would not settle for a “second-class contract.”

Lee McNamara, a cook who has worked there for more than 25 years, told Clark County commissioners in early December that they deserved to be paid a living wage like their counterparts at other casinos.

“We're doing the same amount of work for less pay,” he said. “We are literally the lowest-paid union casino as it stands right now.”

Even though Virgin Hotels isn't located on the Strip, the strike was still highly visible to tourists. For months the union maintained around-the-clock picket lines outside the hotel-casino that's within walking distance of the Strip and along a common route between the main tourist corridor and the city's international airport.

Workers also blocked traffic at one point during the strike in what they said was an effort to bring attention to the labor issues at the casino, resulting in arrests.

Throughout the strike, the union publicly criticized Virgin Hotels for hiring temporary workers who crossed the picket line, a comedian canceled his show in support of the union and the NFL Players Association pledged to boycott the casino while workers were on strike.

Employees on the picket line included housekeepers, porters, bellhops and servers. Some said they were willing to stay on the picket line for as long as it takes, even if it meant getting a second job until a new contract was ratified.

“I’m ready to go for as long as I need to, and I’m pretty sure that’s how everyone else is feeling too,” Michael Renick, a bartender who has worked at Virgin Hotels for about two years, told The Associated Press.

The union last went on strike in 2002, when employees at the Golden Gate hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas stopped working for 10 days. It is the largest labor union in Nevada with about 60,000 members statewide. Most of them are in Las Vegas.