Unions representing hospitality workers in Las Vegas reached a tentative agreement with one of the city’s three largest resort operators on Wednesday, two days before the strike deadline expired just as tourists were arriving for a major international sporting event.
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, members of UNITE HERE, announced the tentative agreement on a five-year contract with Caesars Entertainment, but did not provide details.
The catering union said the agreement came after 20 hours of negotiations and affected 10,000 workers. Caesars said in a statement that the agreement would provide “meaningful wage increases consistent with our past performance as well as continued growth opportunities related to our future plans to create more union jobs on the Las Vegas Strip.”
The two unions said last week that 35,000 members would walk off their jobs Friday at 18 hotels along the Strip owned by Caesars, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts, posing a major threat to the city’s economy.
Negotiations with MGM and Wynn are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. The contracts for housekeepers, bartenders, cooks and servers at the three companies expired on September 15 after being extended in June.
Caesars properties in Las Vegas include Caesars Forum, Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Horseshoe, Paris, Planet Hollywood, the Cromwell and the Linq.
Local unions have been negotiating with resorts since April over demands that include higher wages, more safety protections and stronger recall rights, protections that prioritize rehiring laid-off employees, such as those laid off during pandemic lockdowns or an economic downturn.
In September, the union passed a strike authorization vote with 95 percent approval. More recently, workers demonstrated outside major hotels, marching under palm trees in 30-degree heat with signs reading “One job should be enough,” alluding to low wages.
In a series of ongoing strikes beginning in July, thousands of housekeepers, receptionists, and other hotel employees went on strike at various times at several hotels in Southern California; In Michigan, employees at the MGM Grand Detroit have been on strike since mid-October.
“Nobody wants to strike,” Ted Pappageorge, the head of Local 226, said at a news conference Tuesday. Mr. Pappageorge said agreements with the three major chains – the largest in Nevada – were like “landing three planes at the same time.”
“We have three very large global companies,” he said, adding that they were cautiously optimistic that agreements would be reached.
As Las Vegas braced for the impact of a strike, emergency crews began closing streets and erecting grandstands near the Strip that will serve as the track for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a major international auto race.
The National Finals Rodeo is scheduled for two weeks in early December.
For years, the culinary union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada, has been a powerful political force, considered a crucial base for Democratic candidates in the state and nationally. In 2020, union members’ ground operation and door-knocking campaign helped Joseph R. Biden Jr. secure a narrow victory in the state.
Ahead of his re-election campaign next year, President Biden trailed former President Donald J. Trump by 10 percentage points in the state in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
During a trip last month, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the culinary union’s headquarters and praised the workers as “true champions for working people.”
Lynnette Curtis contributed reporting.