we begin with the culinary and bartenders unions whose members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a citywide strike.

If the unions cannot come to terms on a new five year contract with MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts, the unions and the three resort companies held negotiations this week.

And joining us now to discuss the progress of those talks is McKenna Ross, a reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

McKenna, welcome to Nevada Week.

Thank you for having me.

So as we speak, it is October 5th.

Thursday, The union has now met with MGM Resorts as well as Caesars and will meet with Wynn Resorts on Friday.

What can you tell us about how negotiations have gone so far?

Well, these negotiations have been going on since about April with the major employers that you mentioned, MGM, Caesars and Wynn Resorts.

We know that this citywide contract ended on June 1st, but they've been taking contract extensions until about mid-September.

When the Culinary Union decided that they should end those contracts at those properties and have been working under expired contract.

And what are they telling you as far as how negotiations are going?

You know, the Culinary Union has said that they don't feel that, you know, enough is being done.

This week, they said that they felt that the companies had come to negotiate, so they felt there was some progress there.

But at the same time, they are still strongly suggesting a strike is possible.

And if a deal is not reached by the end of the week, then what happens?

the culinary secretary, Treasurer Ted Papageorgiou, said, quote, All bets are off on setting a strike deadline.

Now, what that means is not necessarily that they would strike the next day, but it would mean that they would set a deadline on when a strike could happen.

That really ups the pressure on the negotiations to get something done by that day, a deadline.

And if that deadline occurs and passes, then, you know, those workers could go on strike.

And that's something that's been, I think, a little bit confusing for people, is that they've authorized a strike.

They're not striking and they haven't yet said by this date, if we don't have a deal, we're going to strike.

But that is the next step is setting a strike deadline.

And we're talking about tens of thousands of employees who work on the Las Vegas Strip potentially walking out if they don't get what they want.

What is it that the union wants and why does the union argue it deserves these benefits?

The union is fighting for what they call the winning the winning the largest wage increases ever negotiated in its history.

Now, they're not being specific about what they want exactly in terms of wages and benefits.

But, you know, efforts to increase the wages substantially.

They're also fighting for reduced workloads and lowering steep housekeeping quotas and mandate, mandating daily room cleanings, other things like on the job safety protections, making sure that the extended recall rights are involved and part of the contract adding something like a no strike clause that doesn't prevent the union from taking action at non-unionized restaurants on a casino's property.

Why are.

They saying.

This?

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They argue that they deserve this because they their gaming companies have done exceedingly well since the pandemic, since coming out and done it, and they want a piece of that profit.

You know, and the negotiations related to workload and workforce safety are meant to address all these changing responsibilities and the staffing sizes that have dropped since the pandemic.

What are the resort companies saying to you when you reach out to them?

Now, they're they're pretty tight lipped in their responses, but they do say that the negotiations are something that they're working very hard on, that they have a long history of of succeeding in these negotiations to try to achieve a contract that everyone is happy with and they ultimately want to commit to getting that that negotiated contract.

For some context, when was the last time that the Culinary Union authorized a strike?

And then what was the result of that?

Sure.

The last time they authorized a strike was actually the last contract negotiation back in 2018.

So they had an authorization vote done sometime in May and they said if if a negotiation isn't a deal isn't reached by June 1st, we might be able to strike.

And, you know, the negotiations went seemingly well.

They reached tentative deals with all of the major employers shortly after June 1st.

Okay.

So it didn't go to a strike then.

When was the actual last time that there was a strike of this magnitude, a city wide strike that could potentially happen?

It's been quite a while, nearly four decades.

The last one was in 1984, and it was against about 20 or so strip properties that really caught them off guard, actually.

And so it was a massive event that lasted 67 days and was about 17,000 workers that struck alongside the bartenders, union and union that covered musicians and others, stagehands and like that.

So it was a pretty long one.

And experts have told me that it caught the companies off guard at that point and possibly why it took so long to achieve that.

And there were confrontations and there was an estimated, you know, workers estimated that they lost $75 million in wages and benefits.

And there's an estimate out there that says the region lost a similar number in tourism revenue.

Wow.

As far as the experts you've talked to about the likelihood of a strike this time, what are they telling you?

You know, they really weigh it both ways.

You know, in in previous years, there have been you know, there have been negotiations that have gone very close, but always stopped.

But also at the same time, there was a more available worker pool of potential strike breakers that they could pull from to staff the resorts if a strike did occur.

And nowadays, there is a lot more power on the labor side of things.

We have a very tight labor market as is.

And and then these people, they they really want to make it by the by these major events that are coming up.

That's another part of it.

They have to worry about getting this deal done and avoiding a strike before we have a massive calendar of events coming, not not including, you know, conventions and, of course, Formula One in November and all the way in December or sorry, all the way in into next year.

The the Super.

Bowl.

Right.

Of course, they have some leverage there.

McKenna, Ross, thank you for your reporting.