Strike could leave tourists without linen sheets

Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.

Message to tourists: Start packing fresh sheets.

The Culinary Union, frustrated by yearlong contract talks with the industrial laundry that handles 85 percent of the linen used by tourists, is threatening to interrupt laundry service at hotels if the two sides can't reach an agreement by midnight.

The union has been negotiating with Mission Industries since last fall ; its 1,600 workers in five plants have been working under a November contract extension.

Talks are stalled over health care coverage.

The union wants Mission Industries to adopt the union's health care plan, its biggest - and most expensive - benefit. As a standard condition of their contracts, Culinary members and their families pay no health care premiums. The current contract includes health care but does not cover union members' spouses and includes coverage caps, said Kevin Kline, the Culinary's lead negotiator in the talks.

To be sure, there has been movement on both sides.

During two bargaining sessions this month, the union agreed to forgo raises in the first two years of the five-year contract, instead directing that money to the Culinary health plan, Kline said. Raises would begin in the third year.

In turn, Mission proposed beginning its participation in the union's health plan in the fifth year of the contract, Kline said. The reason? The company says it is bound by pricing constraints in its current contracts with customers and cannot afford the additional health care costs without renegotiating some of those terms.

A call to Mission's lead negotiator was not returned Tuesday. Culinary leaders say the company has been busy quietly negotiating price increases with its customers.

"We're not asking for the whole Culinary package," Kline said. "These casinos would not be able to operate the way they operate without these laundries , and the workers should at least get the benefit of the union's health plan."

The union has been warning of a strike for weeks, having designed an ad featuring a naked man, covering his midsection with a newspaper, accompanied by the headline: "Got Towel? Vegas casino laundry workers strike?" The ad appeared on taxicabs and roving billboards on the Strip this month and was distributed by hand to pedestrians.

Last week the union gave Mission a seven-day contract termination notice. If bargainers fail to reach an agreement today, Kline said , the union will begin picketing laundry delivery points at hotels Thursday in hope of interrupting service. Union members will also continue distributing leaflets on the Strip, in downtown Las Vegas and at McCarran International Airport, he said.

Kline said the union could then organize a walkout. Such a move would be devastating for the Las Vegas tourism industry. Mission provides sheets and towels for hotel rooms, tablecloths and napkins for restaurants and dry -cleaning services for uniforms. The company services the Strip, downtown Las Vegas and locals casinos.

The slow pace of the talks and the battle over health care are largely because both sides are new to each other.

In 2004 the Culinary Union took over responsibilities for laundry workers in town when its parent organization, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, merged with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees . That union had negotiated the previous contract , which expired last November.

A bargaining session is set for today.

"Hopefully we'll get something done," Kline said. "If not, we'll hit them where they are."