When Virgin Las Vegas employees go on strike, Culinary once more employs F1 leverage.

When Virgin Las Vegas employees go on strike, Culinary once more employs F1 leverage.

 Due to fruitless contract negotiations, some 700 non-gaming employees of Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, who are represented by Culinary Union Local 226, went on strike today, November 15.
 Layoffs
 The first strike at the site this year is scheduled for May 10–11; Friday's strike is the second.  Since the last collective bargaining agreement ended in June of last year, the two parties have been engaged in negotiations.  The final round of talks in July came to a standstill.  Yesterday, November 14, a last-ditch meeting also failed.

 The strike deadline's timing is not coincidental.  November 21–23 is the date of the second Formula One (F1) Grand Prix in Las Vegas.  It has grown to be one of the largest events in the city and gives Culinary a lot of leverage.

 In a statement, Virgin expressed its disappointment that the most recent meeting concluded "without engaging in meaningful bargaining."  Culinary has been charged by the landowner with attempting to use force to secure a contract that "it knows is not economically viable."

 The statement said, "The ball was in the Union's court when we concluded our most recent meeting on 11 July."  The Union had already set a strike deadline of November 15th, but we didn't hear back from them until November 8th.  Today's unproductive approach and poor faith negotiation by the Union was yet another letdown after we waited months for them to reply to our June offering and return to the table.

 Culinary retorted that Virgin's most recent offer did not contain pay raises for the first 18 months of a new agreement.  No raises during the first three years were part of a prior offer.  The union referred to the offers as a "insult to workers" on X and reaffirmed that the parties are still "miles apart."

 Circulatory226: https://twitter.com/status/1857244863034741118
 Culinary is using the Formula One race for the second year in a row.
 The F1 event was used as a deadline by the union last autumn while it was negotiating new contracts with the "Big Three" of Wynn, MGM and Caesars.  Approximately 40,000 employees from 18 different properties were ready to go on strike, which would have severely damaged the city's economy at a crucial moment.  All three businesses agreed to fresh five-year agreements, demonstrating the effectiveness of the strategy.

 Along with a number of other incentives, the agreements offered wage increases of 32% throughout the duration of the contracts.  One major area of controversy after the Covid-era modifications was the reinstatement of the daily room cleaning requirements.  Protections against potentially employment-threatening technology like artificial intelligence were also added.

 Culinary continued its tour de force around the Las Vegas Valley after the Big Three reached an agreement.  Additionally, it negotiated agreements with dozens of independent operators in the area, most likely on the same or comparable terms.  In other instances, Culinary established a deadline in early February and utilised Super Bowl LVIII as leverage.

 Red Rock is the only surviving holdout.
 The fact that Virgin is one of the final Culinary holdouts in Las Vegas makes their strike noteworthy.  The union created history on August 20th when it reached an agreement with the Venetian-Palazzo workers.  Culinary's decades-long effort to unionise the whole Las Vegas Strip was finally accomplished with that agreement.  A four-year agreement was then made to align with the expiration of the previous contracts.

 Sheldon Adelson, the creator of Las Vegas Sands and the previous owner of the Venetian, has long been adamantly against unionisation.  Culinary did not advance there until after Adelson's death in 2021, when the site was transferred to Apollo Global Management.

 Even though Culinary and Adelson weren't friends, their legendary rivalry with Red Rock Resorts was far worse.  For many years, Culinary and Red Rock, the parent corporation of Station Casinos, have been in and out of labour courts.

 Before the National Labour Relations Board, the two parties are presently involved in two different claims.  Culinary claims that in the run-up to a failed 2019 union election, the firm engaged in union-busting practices at its Red Rock Resort location.  In the second, Red Rock is charged with using the COVID-19 pandemic to revoke workers' rights.