A union representing hospitality workers says it has reached a tentative agreement with six more hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas and called off a strike deadline for another. The agreements averted a Monday morning walkout as the city kicks off Super Bowl week. The Culinary Workers Union announced Saturday that it had reached a tentative five-year contract with the Golden Nugget, Binion's, Four Queens, Fremont, and Main Street that covers about 1,000 workers, the AP reports. The union reached a tentative agreement Sunday with Downtown Grand, which represents about 200 workers.
The culinary union and an associated bartenders union are being given more time to reach an agreement with Virgin Las Vegas, an off-Strip resort. The Las Vegas Strip's three largest employers—MGM Resorts International, Caesar Entertainment, and Wynn Resorts—reached deals late last year with union that covered 40,000 members, narrowly averting a historic strike . The union then turned its attention to winning the same contract terms for workers at other hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. Since early January, the union had settled negotiations with most of those properties. But after hitting a snag in negotiations with some of the remaining casinos, the union announced last week that it would go on strike if tentative contracts weren't in place by 5am Monday.
Before the agreement was reached, Ted Pappageorge, head of the union, told Reuters that Biden had committed to joining striking workers on the picket line if they walked out. Biden, who had been in Las Vegas for political events since Sunday, congratulated workers before flying back to Washington, DC on Monday, the AP reports. "I came to say thank you—not just thank you for the support you've given me the last time out and this time, but thank you for having the faith in the union," he said. (More Las Vegas stories.)
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