700 union workers launch 48-hour strike at Virgin Hotels casino off Las Vegas Strip
About 700 workers have walked off the job at a hotel-casino near the Las Vegas Strip in what union organizers say will be a 48-hour strike after spending months trying to reach a deal for new five-year contract with Virgin Hotels
LAS VEGAS — About 700 workers walked off the job at a hotel-casino near the Las Vegas Strip Friday morning in what union organizers said would be a 48-hour strike after spending months trying to reach a deal for new five-year contract with Virgin Hotels.
The Culinary Union Local 226, the largest in Nevada, said the action marked its first strike in 22 years. The union authorized a citywide strike late last year, but it reached agreements with all the major hotel-casinos on the Strip covering about 40,000 workers before the end of the year, and with most downtown and off-Strip properties in early February covering another 10,000 workers.
Guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry and kitchen workers were among those walking a picket line in front of Virgin Hotels a few blocks west of the Strip just after dawn on Friday, union organizers said.
Virgin Hotels filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ahead of the anticipated strike, accusing the union of failing to negotiate in good faith “despite our sincere efforts to meet and negotiate.” It said union officials were engaged in “unlawful ‘take it or leave it’ bargaining.”
“Because the Union has not told us what agreements it believes are necessary to avoid a strike, we have asked the Union to join us in mediation as soon as possible,” Virgin Hotels said. “The goal of mediation is to reach an agreement without disrupting our guests and our team members’ lives with a
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