Hispanic women make their mark on Culinary

Lisa Snedeker

Monday, June 10, 2002 | 10:57 a.m.

The Statue of Liberty that graces the facade of the New York-New York hotel-casino may not be genuine, but the opportunity it represents to a new generation of immigrants is real.

Rosemary Garcia, who has crossed the bridge in front of the statue every morning for five years on the way to her housekeeping job at the Egyptian-themed Luxor hotel-casino, is among them.

The 39-year-old mother is just one of thousands of Hispanic women who helped change the balance of power in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union nationwide and the local Culinary Union over the past decade.

"I do it all for my kids," Garcia said. "I do not want my daughter to have to clean toilets and make beds."

Garcia was among the new faces -- many Hispanic and many female -- sitting at the negotiating table in past weeks, trying to reach a contract with Las Vegas hotel operators to avoid a citywide casino strike.

Nationwide, union membership among women is at an all-time high of 6.7 million, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of Hispanic women in unions increased by 42,000 in 2001 over the year before.

In Las Vegas, the 1990s megaresort building boom started by The Mirage -- the world's largest hotel with 3,000 rooms when it opened -- created a huge need for housekeepers. Maids now make up one of every five members of the Culinary Local 226 that represents about 47,000 bellmen, cocktail waitresses and foodservice workers.

"Prior to the opening of The Mirage in 1989, the number of rooms in a typical Las Vegas hotel was quite small compared to the number of restaurants," John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees union and chairman of the AFL-CIO's immigration committe, said. "The makeup of the union reflected that as well as the leadership up until the 1990s."

As the ranks of women who spend their days cleaning up after tourists on and off the Las Vegas Strip swelled to 9,000 in Local 226, they brought new issues to the bargaining table.

Since the boom set off by The Mirage many of Las Vegas' more than 126,000 hotel rooms are larger and more luxurious than when Glitter Gulch beckoned travelers.

"There is a lot more stuff inside the rooms and a lot more things to clean," said Geoconda Arguello-Kline, who this month became the local union's first Hispanic woman president -- the No. 2 post in the local union. "The bedspreads are heavier and there's a lot more glass and brass.

"It looks very nice," she said, "but it creates a lot more work and the workers feel the difference."

Garcia wears a back brace as she loads her cart with clean towels and linens. Before her eight-hour shift is complete, she will have cleaned 16 rooms.

"It takes a veritable army of housekeepers to clean those thousands of rooms," Glen Arnodo, the Culinary's political director, said. "Their issues have allowed these Hispanic women to come to the forefront (of the union)."

The election of Arguello-Kline, an immigrant from Nicaragua and former housekeeper at Fitzgeralds hotel-casino downtown, reflects the changes the union has undergone over the past decade, Wilhelm said.

"Over the 1990s, the demographics of the union's departments changed very dramatically and that gets reflected in the leadership," he said.

Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM MIRAGE, the largest resort operator on the Las Vegas Strip, said such activism is a natural extension of Hispanics' growing political involvement nationally.

"Especially in the Culinary, where there is a high concentration of Hispanics," he said.

The change also mirrors a shift in the population of the Las Vegas area. Hispanics now make up 22 percent of the population. In just a decade the census shows the numbers of Hispanic grew from 82,904 to 302,143.

Culinary's current demographic breakdown is 40 percent Hispanic, 7 percent African American, 8 percent Asian and 54 percent female, Arnodo estimated.

"If you would look at a picture of our union 20 years ago, you'd find that it was much more African-American," he said.

Wilhelm said that kind of dramatic change alters negotiations.

"I think it's a source of strength and the emergence of Latinos and Latino women, I think, is a source of renewed vigor," Wilhelm said.

For the women who sat at the table with union and casino bosses, the bargaining provided a lesson in democracy and a reminder of why they came to the United States.

Concerns about benefits and housekeepers' working conditions dominated the negotiations and prompted the addition of new contract language to protect Las Vegas housekeepers, casino and union leaders said.

Feldman said management listened to the concerns and recognized a fundamental shift in the kinds of hotel rooms Las Vegas offers.

"By 1998 Las Vegas became the number one city in America for four-diamond hotel rooms. One of the ramifications is the work it takes for daily upkeep," he said.

The talks resulted in five-year deals with the biggest casinos in Las Vegas including Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Mandalay Bay that mean the average wage and benefits package for the union members will rise $3.23 1/2 to $17.40 1/2 per hour by 2007.

"They got the most expensive contract in history at a time when the industry could least afford it," Mike Sloan, a Mandalay senior vice president, said of the tourism slowdown that has plagued the city since Sept. 11.

"They played hardball, and they won."

Hispanic women can make a difference, says Maria Elena Durazo, president of the Hotel Employees union Local 11 in Los Angeles, who was elected last summer as a general vice president.

"It's through our work that everything from wages to benefits to rights for immigrants were changed," said Durazo, the first Hispanic woman elected to one of the international union's top leadership positions.

"As a woman, I certainly urge women not to take a second seat. And maybe, hopefully, my role as president of this local has in some way contributed to building their confidence as well."

Until recently many housekeepers weren't vocal about their concerns.

"I think a lot of them had lost hope that things weren't going to get any better in terms of their working conditions," Arnodo said. "It's an amazing thing to see when something awakens in people where they can make a difference."

Garcia said she was nervous when she found herself across the table from her employer Tony Alamo, Mandalay Bay senior vice president, during negotiations.

"I was scared that something might happen to me if I spoke up," she said. "I guess you never get over that fear you bring with you when you leave your country."

Guatemalan-born Garcia, whose mother worked as a housekeeper in the Los Angeles area, immigrated with her family when she was 16 years old.

Alamo also is an immigrant who started out as a porter in Reno nearly four decades ago, but Garcia wasn't won over.

"That was 39 years ago," she said. "He is a nice man, and he says the door is always open, but I think he forgot what this work is like."

The mother of a 10-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy blames the stress of her housekeeping job for the stillborn birth of a third child two years ago.

"I have to push a 300-pound cart around all day," she said. "That's why the health care is so important to us. We have children who count on us."

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