Las Vegas, the Workers' Paradise

An article by Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect details the remarkable history of Local 226 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union at organizing workers at the hotels and casinos of the city of Las Vegas.

Local 226 is probably the largest – and surely the most remarkable – local union in the United States. While most unions have been shrinking or struggling to hold their own over the past several decades, and while hotel union membership has declined from 16 percent of the hotel workforce in 1983 to 12 percent in 2000, Local 226 has grown by 30,000 members since its low point in 1988. It has done that by organizing virtually every hotel on the Vegas Strip, so that roughly 90 percent of the jobs in the city's major hotels are unionized. Considering that Nevada is a right-to-work state where employees can work in unionized workplaces without joining the union, this is a breathtaking achievement.

Meyerson reviews the union's history: HERE came to Las Vegas when the first generation of Strip casinos were being built in the 1950s, during the time that he delicately describes as "when the Rat Pack was just beginning to appear togeter." People familiar with Vegas history know that this is the heydey of the mob in the city. The union's fortunes declined in the seventies and eighties, when organized crime lost its ascendancy and Vegas gambling was taken over by corporate capital. Eight hotels decertified the union during the eighties.

HERE responded by organizing. "We had to convert from business unionism to rank-and-file unionism," says Local 226 official D. Taylor. (A cynic might view this as changing from a tame mob union into a worker's union with real teeth.) They also responded by cutting a deal with Steve Wynn when he was preparing to open the Mirage, the first of the new breed of modern casino-resorts. In exchange for work-rule concessions and the union's lobbying efforts in Washington, Wynn agreed not to block organizing efforts at Wynn properties. When the Mirage opened, it was a union hotel.

Other casino owners were more reluctant to deal with the union. The union drew a line in the sand at Binion's Horseshoe, downtown. The union struck, setting up picket lines in front of Binion's in January 1989.

SF&F readers may remember this description of Local 226's picket line at Binion's from Tim Powers' novel Last Call:

Strikers from the culinary and bartenders unions were walking back and forth carrying signs in front of the Horseshoe, and one of them, a young woman with very short hair, had a megaphone.

"Baaad luck," the striker was chanting in an eerie, flat voice. "Baad luck at the 'Shoe! Come on oouut, losers!"

God, Dinh thought, Maybe I'd have stage fright, too.

Every Thanksgiving Binion's gave a turkey to each cabdriver, and Dinh, known as Nardie to all the night people of Las Vegas, had always dropped off her downtown fares in front of the place. She wondered if she'd soon have to start unloading them back by the Four Queens.

Business at the Horseshoe fell off. Once upon a time, nobody crossed Benny Binion; but Benny was dying, and maybe Local 226 still had mob juice. At any rate, after a strike that lasted nine and a half months, Benny's son Jack, now managing the 'Shoe, signed with the union. Benny died not long after, on Christmas Day of 1989.

After this, other casinos fell into line, except the Frontier, on the Strip. A six-year strike left the Frontier a ruined business, and in 1998 it was sold. The new owners quickly signed with Local 226.

Meyerson highlights the union-run training programs – funded by the casino-resorts – that open job prospects for union members in the lowest-tier jobs, such as housekeeping. With union encouragement, a worker can start in an essentially unskilled job and climb up a ladder of skills. From what Meyerson describes, this is one part of the world of casinos where everybody wins: the workers improve their skillsets, and earn more even at the lowest skill levels; the casino-resorts gets a pool of service-industry labor better trained to meet their hiring needs as they continue to expand; and the union continues to keep its place at the banquet table. Hotel workers in Las Vegas earn 40% more than their counterparts in Reno. Las Vegas dishwashers earn $4 per hour more than the national average 0f $7.45/hr.

This is because the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union fought to keep its place at the table when Las Vegas reinvented itself. At the same time, though, Las Vegas's growth made it possible. Las Vegas has continued to prosper even after 9-11, even after the dotcom bust and the NASDAQ crash. Those who look to Las Vegas to learn how the labor movement can revitalize itself need to keep this in mind.

(via Calpundit)