Downtown casinos feel heat as Culinary opens talks

Michael J. Mishak

Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

Let's get ready to rumble.

At least that's the message coming from downtown Las Vegas, where the Culinary Union opened contract talks with a group of casino operators Friday.

According to Gregory Kamer, the labor lawyer representing the bulk of downtown properties, the union opened the negotiations by being unreasonable - a claim the union disputed.

The Culinary is proposing the same economic package it secured with Harrah's Entertainment in June, which included the union's largest-ever wage and benefits increases. The bargaining group includes El Cortez, Fitzgeralds, the Four Queens, the Las Vegas Club, the Western and the Plaza.

Kamer said those second-tier properties are still reeling from contracts they signed with the union in 2002 and cannot afford to pay Strip-level wages.

What's more, he said, the union has just one bargaining session scheduled with the downtown operators before it holds a strike authorization vote next month. Tens of thousands of Culinary members plan to gather on Sept. 12 at Cashman Field to vote on whether to authorize strikes at various properties if bargainers can't reach agreements. That vote, however, does not mean any strike is imminent.

"It's totally unfair," Kamer said. "It's unconscionable they are taking a strike vote without giving us a chance to tell our side of the story."

Kamer added: "This isn't how you problem solve. This is how you put a gun to someone's head."

Current five-year contracts, affecting about 50,000 hotel and restaurant service employees, expired June 1, but the union and the casino operators signed extensions that allow negotiations to continue.

For its part, the Culinary said Kamer was overreacting, noting that its members were eager to negotiate and committed to good faith bargaining.

"Negotiations are a process," said Pilar Weiss, the union's political director. "Today we had our opening session and we're looking forward to getting a counter-proposal. It's a back and forth. It always has been and it always will be."

Culinary leader D. Taylor had predicted a series of contentious talks from the start.

"We'll have a big fight downtown," he told a small group of workers during a contract briefing with former Sen. John Edwards last month.

In an interview after that briefing, Taylor said his comments were based largely on contract talks in 2002, when the Culinary and downtown operators fought bitterly over maintaining the union's health care and pension plans.

As for the strike vote, 2002 offers a precedent. That year, the Culinary took a citywide strike vote in May, well before it started negotiations with downtown operators. The union quickly reached deals with the major Strip properties, and then opened talks downtown.

The union's only strike that year was the Golden Gate. Workers picketed the downtown casino for eight days.

This time the Culinary is starting downtown talks without a settlement from MGM Mirage, which, with more than 21,000 Culinary employees, is the largest player in town. Those negotiations have stalled, as both sides are dug in on pay, benefits and especially the rules that will govern organizing workers at some new properties.

The downtown drama comes on a day when the union reached a settlement with the Riviera, which employs about 1,000 Culinary members. According to the union, the deal mirrors the Harrah's contract, and members will vote to ratify the agreement next week.

The union tried to isolate MGM Mirage on the Strip by opening talks with other Strip operators last month, including the Riviera, the Stratosphere and the Las Vegas Hilton.