Workers ready to shut down entire Vegas strip

by Mark Gruenberg

Las Vegas casino owners’ threats to subcontract or automate thousands of workers’ jobs – among other issues — forced the workers, employed by Unite Here Locals 226 and 165, to vote almost unanimously to authorize a strike if bargainers fail to agree on a new pact by June 1.

If 50,000 workers, who toil at 34 big hotels on the Las Vegas strip and downtown, must walk out, it would be the union’s largest strike in decades. The May 23 vote at the Thomas and Mack Center, a basketball arena, drew 25,000 members, who authorized the strike by a 99 percent-1 percent margin.

“We don’t want to go on strike, but we will if we have to,” said union Communications Director Bethany Khan. “The companies are more profitable than ever, because of our hard work, and the workers want to share in that success for their families.”

The two locals represent culinary and other hotel workers (Local 226) and bartenders (Local 165). The other workers – at resorts such as MGM Grand, Caesars Palace, Bally’s, Circus Circus and New York New York — include guest room attendants, cocktail servers, food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, and kitchen workers. Members of the two locals, Unite Here’s and Nevada’s biggest, are women (55 percent), members of minorities (54 percent), or both.

“A strike is a last resort. We want to come to an agreement, but the union and workers are preparing for a citywide strike if contracts are not settled by June 1,” said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, Local 226’s Secretary-Treasurer. Several hotels have pacts that run beyond June 1.

“We support innovations that improve jobs, but we oppose automation when it only destroys jobs. Our industry must innovate without losing the human touch. That’s why employers should work with us to stay strong, fair, and competitive,” Argüello-Kline added.

If the casinos force the workers to walk, it would be the largest strike in Las Vegas in 34 years. The last long strike, settled 20 years ago, led to unionization of – and the sale of – the Frontier Casino. That drew massive labor-wide support. That walkout lasted seven years and nobody ever crossed Unite Here’s picket line.

Chad Neanover, a prep cook at the Margaritaville, told the union he “voted yes to go on strike to ensure my job isn’t outsourced to a robot. We know technology is coming, but workers shouldn’t be pushed out or left behind. Casino companies should ensure technology is harnessed to improve the quality and safety in the workplace, not as a way to completely eliminate our jobs.”

“I don’t want to go on strike, but I will. The company is more profitable than ever because of the hard work we do, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we have a fair share of that success,” added MGM Resorts International guest room attendant Adela Montes de Oca.

Besides automation and subcontracting, other top issues include more job security for members, workplace safety, measures to curb and prevent sexual harassment and the casinos’ attitude towards protecting immigrants. Las Vegas has declared itself a “sanctuary city,” incurring the ire of the GOP Trump administration. GOP state lawmakers are trying to put a initiative on the November ballot to ban all sanctuary cities in the state.

“In addition, the union’s economic proposal seeks to provide workers a fair share of the employers’ enormous anticipated cash flows and Trump tax windfalls,” its statement says.

At MGM Resorts International alone, the Trump tax cut for business and the rich gave the chain’s hotels $1.6 billion, the union pointed out in early bargaining. MGM bosses sent $580 million to shareholders, while pocketing the rest. Negotiations started in February.

Unite Here also asked other Nevada locals, elected officials, political candidates and tourists not to support the hotels and casinos in case the workers have to walk on or after June 1. “In event of a strike, please do not cross picket lines,” its announcement says.

If the strike gets called that day, another union, the National Hockey League Players Association, will face a dilemma. The Stanley Cup title playoffs – hockey’s championship series – will start in Las Vegas three days before, with the hometown Golden Knights as hosts.

A call to the NHLPA about what their members would do was not returned as of 5 pm on May 23. But Khan expects no problems. “We haven’t contacted them yet, but we will,” she said of the NHLPA. “We’re sure the players, who are union members themselves, will be in solidarity with us.”

Source:

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/workers-ready-to-shut-down-entire-vegas-strip/

Comments

WikiLeaks reveals that literally every router in America has been compromised

The latest Wikileaks Vault7 release reveals details of the CIA’s alleged Cherry Blossom project, a scheme that uses wireless devices to access users’ internet activity. globinfo freexchange As cyber security expert John McAfee told to RT and Natasha Sweatte: Virtually, every router that's in use in the American home are accessible to hackers, to the CIA, that they can take over the control of the router, they can monitor all of the traffic, and worse, they can download malware into any device that is connected to that router. I personally, never connect to any Wi-Fi system, I use the LTE on my phone. That's the only way that I can be secure because every router in America has been compromised. We've been warning about it for years, nobody pays attention until something like WikiLeaks comes up and says 'look, this is what's happening'. And it is devastating in terms of the impact on American privacy because once the router...

Confirmed: Alex Jones' popularity rises after Infowars banning from social media

globinfo freexchange We wouldn't expect to be confirmed so fast on this. A few days ago in the article IT and social media supergiants have just made Alex Jones a hero in the eyes of the ultra-conservative audience , we wrote that Alex Jones' wet dream has just become reality thanks to the combined move by Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify to ban Infowars. These private IT and social media companies couldn't give a better gift to him right now. At a time where Infowars was going through a saturated period according to the best scenario, the corporate giants actually saved it with that stupid(?) strategy. Suddenly, a corporate branch of the liberal establishment gave real value to Alex Jones' awful performance, pretending to be the 'anti-establishment' hero - just like Donald Trump - and made him a real hero in the eyes of the ultra-conservative audience that has been brainwashed by his absurd conspiracy theories. Only a couple of days later...

Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots!

globinfo freexchange According to world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the rising use of automated machines may mean the end of human rights – not just jobs. But he’s not talking about robots with artificial intelligence taking over the world, he’s talking about the current capitalist political system and its major players. On Reddit, Hawking said that the economic gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow as more jobs are automated by machines, and the owners of said machines hoard them to create more wealth for themselves. The insatiable thirst for capitalist accumulation bestowed upon humans by years of lies and terrible economic policy has affected technology in such a way that one of its major goals has become to replace human jobs. If we do not take this warning seriously, we may face unfathomable corporate domination. If we let the same people who buy and sell our political system and resources maintain control of automated technology, the...

CIA had an agent at a newspaper in every world capital at least since 1977

Joel Whitney is a co-founder of the magazine Guernica, a magazine of global arts and politics, and has written for many publications, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. His book Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers describes how the CIA contributed funds to numerous respected magazines during the Cold War, including the Paris Review, to subtly promote anti-communist views. In their conversation, Whitney tells Robert Scheer about the ties the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom had with literary magazines. He talks about the CIA's attempt during the Cold War to have at least one agent in every major news organization in order to get stories killed if they were too critical or get them to run if they were favorable to the agency. And they discuss the overstatement of the immediate risks and dangers of communist regimes during the Cold War, which, initially, led many people to support the Vietnam War. globinfo freexchange...

Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

globinfo freexchange As we wrote in our previous article, after almost eight years, the US imperialists and the NATO criminals got what they wanted. They finally managed to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine. We now have indisputable evidence for that, through a document by the top US think tank, RAND Corporation. In the preface of a 2019 report under the title Extending Russia, Competing from Advantageous Ground we read: [emphasis added] The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps ar...

How normal human behavior became a false mental disorder epidemic

globinfo freexchange In the early nineties, an epidemic of mental disorder was sweeping America and Britain. It had been uncovered by a new system for identifying disorders. Psychiatry had been attacked for relying on the personal and fallible judgement of psychiatrists. But instead, a new objective method based on checklists had been invented. These listed only the objective symptoms, and deliberately did not enquire into why the individuals felt an anxiety. In the late 80s, nationwide surveys had revealed an incredible picture: more than 50% of Americans suffered from mental disorders. But at the very same, the drug companies had announced that they had created a new type of drug, called an SSRI, which they claimed, targeted the circuits inside the brain that were causing these malfunctions. The SSRIs were marketed under names like "Prozac". What they did was alter the amounts of serotonin that flowed across the circuit connections within the brain, and they...

American youth are turning on Israel, left and right

The Grayzone The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal on the total collapse of support for Israel among young American progressives, and the crisis Israel faces for the first time among conservative youth.

GAME OVER, Trump: Putin, China & BRICS Just CRUSHED US Dollar

Danny Haiphong Donald Trump's war on BRICS is backfiring as the Russia & China-led Global South moves to dump the US dollar and build a new order independent of its dictates. Journalist and geopolitical analyst Ben Norton breaks it all down. Related: Trump's tariffs: A unique opportunity for BRICS and the Global South to fully escape from dollar tyranny

Varoufakis: IT technologies will overthrow Capitalism

globinfo freexchange The former Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, ended his recent speech on the Future of Capitalism, at the New School, New York, with some interesting remarks. As he said: The world we live in, is increasingly rudderless, in a constant slow burning recession, while at the very same time, the increasing concentration in the IT sector is creating the new technologies that will do that which the Left has failed to do: overthrow Capitalism. It is really very simple. The moment machines pass the Turing test properly, and you pick up the phone and you do not know whether the person you are talking to is a human being or a machine ˙ the moment we are going to have 3D printers operating as public utilities - you can send any blueprint to it and it can print from one pin to a motorcycle, or to a car - the moment that this happens, we have not just a process of Schumpeterian creative destruction, but we have a process where economies of sc...

Signals of an unsustainable future coming from Davos

Hyper-automation impact on unemployment rise - further shrinking of the middle class - creation of a working elite - substitution of saturated Western consumers with other emerging consumer tanks globinfo freexchange The general conclusions from the report The Future of Jobs , of the 2016 World Economic Forum, leave little room for optimistic thoughts about the future. They reflect what already most of us have realized: that the combination of the current socio-economic model with the rapid hyper-automation of production, lead to further imbalance and inequality in favor of the very few. As Stephen Hawking mentioned recently: “ If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the seco...

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog