Culinary, Tropicana are talking — but slowly, not about the big issues

Sam Morris

A car window reflects the Tropicana, whose owners are in talks with the Culinary Union. The resort is the only one on the Strip with Culinary workers that has yet to reach a contract with the union.

By Michael Mishak (contact)

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Negotiations between the Culinary Union and the Tropicana are moving glacially, labor leader D. Taylor said Tuesday, with the union “grinding” its way through the company’s proposal for a new contract.

The sides have been locked since May in a bitter fight over a new pact affecting 700 workers, and began Monday’s 4.5-hour session with an attempt to clear the air. Taylor said he called on representatives of owner Columbia Sussex to publicly apologize for dismissing employees’ payroll and security concerns. The company, he said, declined to address the matter.

Columbia Sussex spokesman Hud Englehart told the Sun employees had not brought those concerns to the company, so the allegations were “a mystery.”

At Monday’s bargaining session, which ran into the night, the Culinary complained that the company has told workers not to cash their paychecks on payday, failed to pay overtime, failed to pay for days worked, misreported tip income, incorrectly withheld child support payments, made unauthorized payroll deductions and allowed insurance coverage for workers on medical leave to lapse.

Some members said they have complained to the Tropicana payroll department and have responses from the Tropicana payroll manager, on letterhead, acknowledging the problems — despite Englehart’s contention that the company didn’t know of them.

Englehart issued a wholesale denial of the union’s payroll complaints, but allowed that in the “rare instances” the company failed to make family leave payments when it should have, the oversight was rectified.

As for Monday’s progress: The parties debated language involving leave of absence, meal breaks and shift-worker definitions, among other items. They have yet to tackle big-ticket items such as health care and pension plans — hard-won benefits the union wants to maintain but the company wants to change.

“I’m eternally hopeful,” Taylor said of securing a contract with the Tropicana, the last Strip property without a new labor pact. “But when you try to emasculate some of the key points of a collective bargaining agreement everyone else has agreed to, it’s challenging.”

The next negotiating session is Feb. 28.

Sun reporter Liz Benston contributed to this report.