It’s Goliath vs. Goliath in Culinary negotiations

By Michael Mishak

Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

Every five years, the town's biggest labor union and gaming bosses sit down to forge pacts over salaries and benefits.

It's something of a ritual dance and even though some toes have been stepped on, it's been more of a waltz than a jitterbug. The two sides are generally polite and efficient, quick to compromise so they can get back to work, the state's economic engine continuing to purr, uninterrupted.

The Culinary Union, representing about 60,000 bartenders, maids and food and beverage servers, is preparing for the next round of dances, which could begin as early as next month. But one of the dance partners has gained considerable weight and the question now is how well they'll glide across the floor.

MGM Mirage, which bought Mandalay Resort Group for $7.9 billion in 2005, is the gorilla this year, far and away the largest employer of union help in town. So industry eyes will be on how well those talks go, setting the pace for other talks up and down the Strip - and to a lesser extent, in downtown Las Vegas.

The current five-year contract, which affects about 50,000 hotel and restaurant service employees, expires June 1.

The union has sent strong signals that it will be looking to maintain existing health care and pension benefits, in addition to seeking cost-of-living increases for its workers, mostly to combat inflation in the housing market since the last contract.

Casino industry insiders say that given Nevada's robust economy, they don't anticipate big snags in those areas. Nor do they expect wrangling over health care issues that, in 2002, triggered pitched discussions because of increasing employee health care costs. The union prevailed in getting management to pick up some of those costs.

Tensions, however, are expected this time over the union's right to organize the 12,000 workers at Project CityCenter, MGM Mirage's $7 billion development in the heart of the Strip.

At issue could be a staple of union organizing in Las Vegas: the card check-neutrality agreement.

A card check allows organizers to approach workers to sign cards specifying their support of the union. The card check is often coupled with a neutrality agreement, wherein the company agrees to accept the union once a majority of workers sign cards.

Essentially, it's an open invitation from the casinos to organized labor. And, under a provision in the Culinary's contracts with each of the major gaming companies, casino operators must honor card-check neutrality at any of its new properties.

Industry insiders expect MGM Mirage, with 10 Strip resorts, to challenge that long-standing provision. MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman did not return a call seeking comment.

Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor said the union's card check-neutrality has been challenged in the past, notably at the MGM Grand.

"I thought we'd gotten past that in this town," he said. "Our members view card-check neutrality very seriously."

Taylor declined to comment specifically on the upcoming MGM Mirage negotiations.

While insiders expect MGM Mirage to approve card check-neutrality for CityCenter's centerpiece resort, they say the company will use its newfound stature to resist any attempt by the union to organize the project's two boutique, nongaming hotels - the Mandarin Oriental and the Harmon Hotel & Residences.

That would be a setback for the union, which has aggressively grown its membership, boosting its ranks by 20 percent in the past year alone, and organized virtually every major Strip hotel, with the exceptions of the Venetian and Imperial Palace.

Still, there is some precedent. Gaming companies have contracted with outside operators in recent years to run restaurants and nightclubs in their casinos, without unionized labor.

Nationally, card checks stoked fires in Washington last year as federal lawmakers debated the Employee Free Choice Act, which would require companies to honor their workers' decision to organize through card checks. The law still faces strong opposition from powerful business lobbies.

The last company to reject Culinary's card-check neutrality was the former owner of Aladdin.

In 2004 the Sommer Family Trust and London Clubs International Plc pushed workers to decide via a secret-ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, which union officials say is cumbersome and gives companies the opportunity to intimidate workers.

The hard-line stance led the union to picket the property several times. Culinary came to an agreement with the new owners in 2005, successfully organizing the Aladdin's workers.