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Sunday, Dec. 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Union boss: D. Taylor is the Culinary Union's local leader and chief bargainer.
What's Your Vision?
I’m a very optimistic person. I think Las Vegas will come back, but not with the kind of growth we’ve had over the past 20 years.
In any place that has steroid growth you ultimately have to adapt to a more realistic growth pattern, and frankly you get real muscle. You’re not as bloated and you’re more efficient. I think that will happen here. Any time you get tested and go through hard times, you are much stronger for it. Las Vegas has proved it can reinvent itself and face the challenges.
For a lot of people, Las Vegas lost its value. It needs to get that back. The city also has to be viewed as a destination for all people. It has to figure out how we expand and appeal to broader segments of the population. This country is becoming much more multicultural and much more diverse. How do we fill each and every one of those niches? How do we reflect the workers who are here now?
Chicago and San Francisco service a wide range of visitors. I think Las Vegas has to be like any other major tourist city that allows for different markets to be comfortable. We have the most incredible hotel and restaurant concentration in the world. In urban terms, we have to figure out better mixed use.
As a community, we have to take a deep breath and say what we want to be. Being a city people talk about, we have to put our finances into upgrading the educational system in this state. That allows people to have enormous opportunity. That’s part of the American dream. If we don’t do that we will always be someone who does not quite reach his potential. The idea that you can have a thriving, healthy community with a school system that is at the bottom of every list is ludicrous.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. You have to pay for it and it needs to be transparent. The elected bodies have been unwilling to have that kind of discussion. They’ve avoided those difficult conversations. We’re not going to have another 20 years of steroid growth. Now is the time to have those conversations. We’re in a crisis here: health, education, transportation, fire and police. If you want those things, elected leaders need to say, “Here’s how much it costs and here’s how we get there.”
In 2020, this town will be more unionized. Organizing will rebound. Our members will have the potential to grow. The question of going union has been enhanced by the recession. People who have unions have been appreciative. Some of the people who have gotten whacked in this economy, it’s been done indiscriminately. The Culinary has helped people maintain health insurance, offered workshops on foreclosures and given food baskets to folks who wouldn’t be able to afford a Christmas dinner. We’ve also been extremely involved with on-the-job issues.
People will have the opportunity to get a little piece of the Las Vegas dream.
D. Taylor is secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union.
Las Vegas has to compete with the rest of the country and the world for visitors. The unions have made Las Vegas less and less competitive and the decline will continue until the union leaders recognize how much life has changed.
No offense to the unions here, but unions were needed in the early part of the century - they are not needed now. The laws protecting the worker are stronger now then they ever have been. There is something wrong with the system, where $3500 in the price of EVERY Car sold in america, goes to union benefits. How is that competitive? And when an organization can shut down a business or disrupt operations of the entire US of A, that is wrong !
I go into a restruant with union employees, I leave a quarter tip on the table when I leave. That is all they are worth. Let them complain to Mr. Donald Taylor if they don't like it.
Unions thrive when they are the only game in town. Even though this is supposedly a "right to work" state, it is in effect a Union state, due to some commission in Reno that sets wage rates at the Union rate on public projects. Thank God they do not control housing construction-imagine a $30/hour carpenter laying roof tiles? At the end of the job, hearing "Ooh, ooh, I hurt my back"...
Gee, I wonder why Boeing is opening a second plant in non-union South Carolina to build the 787 Dreamliner? Would it have any connection with the costly strike by Union Machinists in Washington state that cost them hundreds of orders? See, the one key we can all count on is Union greed, which results in injuries when they shoot themselves in the foot.
Public unions are the worst, but at least we can lay the loafers off. Good. "Gosh, we got to the burning house, it was already burned down to the ground, but somehow 3 of our heroic firefighters are out on disability now". It gets a little old, doesn't it?
bdover are you the one I've heard about doing stand-up and sit-down comedy in the mens rooms around the valley. Watch out, someones gonna flush ya!
The largest union in the world is called Upper management, the unions have cut them selves a slice of what the upper management gets and somehow people think this is wrong,if the unions didn't get it you think that it would come back to you!! as a consumer.
If you believe that then carry it a little farther if the upper management of AIG didn't get bonuses or deferred salaries then things would be better for you right!
In reality these corporate managers only what to reduce the size of the pool in hope of securing even larger bonuses for them selves, The amount of money would not change just the size of the pool.
Now with that said yes some of the members are responsible for unscrupulous activity like false injuries, or theft of time or other things of value, and those should be removed from employment and that has to come from the employer, the employer has to get a conviction in a criminal court then that employee will not be reinstated, and there are a lot of members who would like to see these employee's convicted for the reason they give every one a black eye.
For example if you are a member of let's say the National Rifle Association and one member goes and commits a terrorist act such as blowing up a abortion clinic, Every member will now be labeled a terrorist cell, when in reality all of the members don't share the one members same agenda.
$3500 in the price of every car sold in America? Wow. Even the vehicles that are not "made" here? Wow. GM is expanding operations in China where the auto worker probably makes $5 a day, but don't hold your breath waiting for the price to come down to reflect the reduction in labor cost...
SEIU = ACORN
D. Taylor sez unions will help. He was all over the TV when contracts needed renewed saying that the worker needs a piece of the profit these big companies are making. I wonder how he will be about re-negotiating pay/benefits downward when it is time due to the new market realities?
Unions rule according to my savings, pensions and annuities. Looks like I'll be buying some foreclosed homes to rent to some of you anti-union, anti-intelligence types who walked away from your decisions!
I don't think unions are a bad thing. They force the greedy executives at these resorts to pay a fair wage to their employees. Believe me if they didn't have a union these people would not be getting a living wage in the casino. The executives pay would be even more ridiculous than it already is.