STRATEGIC INTEGRATION, CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION, AND

COMPREHENSIVE CONTRACT CAMPAIGN EFFECTIVENESS: A CASE

STUDY OF THE CULINARY WORKERS UNION, HERE LOCAL 226’S 2002

COMPREHENSIVE CONTRACT CAMPAIGN

A Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

of Cornell University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Science

by

Paul Everett Hayes

January 2006
© 2006 Paul Everett Hayes
 ABSTRACT

This thesis is a case study of the comprehensive contract campaign that the

Culinary Union, HERE Local 226 utilized in its 2002 round of negotiations with

casino operators in Las Vegas. The focus of this study is on how the comprehensive

contract campaign strategy used by the Culinary Union increased the local’s

bargaining power in the negotiations. This case study links the success of the 2002

comprehensive contract campaign to the local’s prior practices, long-term strategies,

as well as its organizational structure and culture. This case study also examines how

the political, social, and economic context of Las Vegas’s casino industry influenced

the Culinary Union’s comprehensive contract campaign. It describes the interactive

relationship between these external contextual factors, the local’s strategic choices,

and industrial relations outcomes in Las Vegas’s casino industry. This case study

describes how the Culinary Union, by using the organizing model of contract

administration, created an organizational culture and structure that lead to increases in

the quality and quantity of rank-and-file participation in the union, and how this

benefited the union in its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign. In addition to citing

specific examples from the 2002 contract campaign itself, this case study uses the

industrial relations literature relating to union commitment and participation, in order

to support this argument.

 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Paul Hayes was born in 1977 in Schenectady, NY, where he also grew up. He

graduated from SUNY-Binghamton in 2000, with a B.A. in Political Science. While

attending SUNY-Binghamton, Paul helped Prof. David Cingranelli with his research

on international labor rights. Upon graduating Paul worked as a research intern with

HERE Local 26 in Boston, after which he moved to Venezuela to teach English.

When he returned from Venezuela, Paul interned with the New York State AFL-CIO

and worked on the American Labor Studies Center. Following that internship, Paul

began his graduate studies at Cornell’s ILR School. During the summer, between his

first and second years at Cornell, Paul interned with the Culinary Union in Las Vegas.

It was at this time when most of the fieldwork for this thesis was completed. After

finishing his course work at Cornell, Paul began to work as a Researcher for SEIU

Local 504 in Pittsburgh.

iii
Dedicated to the men and women of the American Labor Movement.

iv
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank the members, staff, and leadership of

the Culinary Union Workers Union, HERE Local 226 for granting me the time,

resources, and access that made this thesis possible. I would especially like to thank

Chris Bohner for hiring me as a research intern for the Culinary Workers Union and

acting as a host during my time in Las Vegas. I would also like to thank Jeff Nelson

for convincing Local 226 to take me on as an intern and allowing me to study their

local. I would also like to thank Ted Pappageorge for taking the time out of his busy

schedule for several multi-hour interviews. His insights were invaluable for this

thesis. I would also like to everyone in Las Vegas who I interviewed for this thesis.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my housemates in Las Vegas, whose casual

conversation provided me with lots anecdotal information about what it is like to work

in a casino.

I would like to extend an extra special thanks to my thesis committee, Ileen

Devault, Kate Bronfenbrenner, and Bruce Tracey, who have been endlessly patient

and understanding while I struggled to finish this thesis. I would especially like to

thank Kate Bronfenbrenner for helping to set up my internship in Las Vegas and for

the guidance she provided me with while I was at Cornell. I would also like to thank

Emma Stephens for proof reading this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my

parents for their love and support.

v
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.........................................................................................iii

DEDICATION .............................................................................................................. iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. vi

LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................ x

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................xii

Chapter I: Introduction ................................................................................................... 1

Internal and External Context..................................................................................... 3

Culture, Long-Term Strategies, and Prior Practices................................................... 4

Revitalization.............................................................................................................. 8

Organization of Thesis ............................................................................................. 13

Chapter II: Literature Review....................................................................................... 15

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 15

Collective Bargaining and Union Revitalization...................................................... 18

Comprehensive Contract Campaigns ....................................................................... 26

Strategic Integration ................................................................................................. 36

Contract Administration and the Organizing Model ................................................ 43

Chapter III: Methodology............................................................................................. 52

Chapter IV: Las Vegas Background............................................................................. 55

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 55

The City of Las Vegas.............................................................................................. 55

The Las Vegas Casino Industry................................................................................ 56

Las Vegas Gaming Industry Workforce................................................................... 60

Patterns of Collective Bargaining in Las Vegas’s Casino Industry ......................... 61

vi
 History of the Casino Industry in Las Vegas ........................................................... 63

Early History ........................................................................................................ 63

Las Vegas’s Golden Era....................................................................................... 65

Corporatization of Las Vegas............................................................................... 69

Las Vegas Gaming Industry in Decline................................................................ 71

Mirage Phase Las Vegas ...................................................................................... 72

Present-Day Las Vegas ........................................................................................ 74

Conclusion................................................................................................................ 76

Chapter V: Culinary Workers Union Local 226 – History and Context ...................... 77

Introduction .............................................................................................................. 77

History of the Culinary Union through the 1980s .................................................... 78

Early History ........................................................................................................ 78

Corporatization of Las Vegas............................................................................... 81

Death of Al Bramlet and decline of the Culinary Union ...................................... 82

1984 Strike............................................................................................................ 83

Revitalization of the Culinary Union ....................................................................... 86

Mopping up after the 1984 Strike......................................................................... 87

Obtaining Card-Check Neutrality along the Strip ............................................... 89

Culinary Union during the 1990s ............................................................................. 94

MGM Organizing Campaign................................................................................ 95

Frontier Strike ...................................................................................................... 97

Santa Fe Organizing Campaign......................................................................... 100

Political Efforts of the Culinary Union during the 1990s .................................. 103

The Culinary Academy ....................................................................................... 106

Contract Negotiations in the 1990s.................................................................... 108

Changes in Casino Industry Workforce Demographics during the 1990s......... 112

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 Revitalization of the Culinary Union since in the 1990s and Current Practices .... 113

Contract Administration..................................................................................... 115

Politics................................................................................................................ 122

External Organizing ........................................................................................... 123

Contract Bargaining........................................................................................... 125

Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 127

Chapter VI: Contract Campaign Strategy................................................................... 131

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 131

Rank-and-File Mobilization Effort......................................................................... 132

Building the Contract Committee and Administering the Contract Survey ....... 134

GRA Campaign................................................................................................... 137

Miscellaneous Rank-and-File Mobilization Tactics........................................... 146

Rank-and-File External and Internal Pressure Tactics ..................................... 147

Corporate Pressure Tactics ..................................................................................... 152

Influence of Context of Culinary Union Comprehensive Campaign Strategy....... 155

Union strategy in negotiations with downtown and neighborhood casino

operators ............................................................................................................. 158

Impact of 9/11 on the 2002 Comprehensive Contract Campaign .......................... 160

Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 164

Chapter VII: 2002 Contract Negotiations: Overview of Events ................................ 166

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 166

Las Vegas Strip Employers Strategies and Objectives .......................................... 166

Bargaining on the Strip........................................................................................... 172

Settlement with Major Strip Operators................................................................... 179

Negotiations and Settlement with Downtown and Neighborhood Casinos ........... 183

Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 191

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Chapter VIII: Conclusion & Analysis ........................................................................ 192

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 192

Industrial Relations Context ................................................................................... 193

Union Revitalization............................................................................................... 195

Case Studies of Comprehensive Contract Campaigns ....................................... 195

Strategic Integration........................................................................................... 198

Contract Administration and the Organizing Model.......................................... 202

Areas of Future Research ....................................................................................... 204

Implications for other Union Locals ...................................................................... 207

Future Prospects of the Culinary Union ................................................................. 208

APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................ 210

APPENDIX B............................................................................................................. 212

References .................................................................................................................. 215

ix
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Relationship between union strategies in different areas of union activity as

well as external environment…………………………………………………………..6

x
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 7.1: Annual Increase in total compensation called for in 2002 contract with

major Strip operators ………………………………………………………………..181

Table 7.2: Annual cumulative increase in compensation called for by the 2002-2007

contract for downtown and neighborhood casinos with the exception of the Golden

Nugget ………………………………………………………………………………187

xi
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial

Organizations

AFSCME American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees

AFGE American Federation of Government Employees

AFM American Federation of Musicians

CWA Communication Workers of America

EBITDA Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization

EDR Employee Dining Room

FLSA Fair Labor Standards Act

GRA Guest Room Attendant

HERE Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union

HGR Hotel, Gaming and Recreation Industry

IATSE International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees

IBT International Brotherhood of Teamsters

IUOE International Union of Operation Engineers

MSA Metropolitan Statistical Area

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

NLRA National Labor Relations Act

NLRB National Labor Relations Board

NRA Nevada Resort Association

PACE Petroleum and Allied Chemical Employees

SEC Securities and Exchange Commission

SEIU Service Employees International Union

TWU Transport Workers Union

UAW United Auto Workers

xii
UFCW United Food and Commercial Workers

ULP Unfair Labor Practice.

UNITE Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees

UNITE-HERE The union that was formed when the Union of Needletrades,

Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel and

Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) merged in 2004.

UNLV University of Nevada, Las Vegas

UPIU United Paperworkers International Union

xiii
Chapter I: Introduction

Local 226, of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union is widely regarded as

one of the most successful union locals in the United States today. Commonly known

as the Culinary Union, Local 226 primarily represents workers in Las Vegas’s Casino

Industry. Evidence of the success of the Culinary Union can be found in the

exceptionally high standard of living its members enjoy, relative to their counterparts

in the same industry in other cities. Las Vegas is widely touted as the only city in

America where a hotel or casino housekeeper (GRA) can obtain the basic

accoutrements of the American middle class lifestyle such as owning a home

(Greenhouse, 2004).

Taking the cost of living into account, the wages earned by Las Vegas’s hotel

and casino workers are higher than those earned by similar workers in any of the other

top 20 hospitality markets in the United States (Wial & Rickert, 2002). Furthermore,

the median wage of a housekeeper in the United States was $7.09 hour in 2002, while

housekeepers covered by Culinary Contracts earn $10.45 an hour (Bernhardt, 2003,

Alexander, 2002, Mirage Contract, 2002-2007). The Culinary Union is also one of the

few locals in the hospitality industry to successfully deal with the issue of

subcontracting, having negotiated clauses in its contracts with most casinos, requiring

that subcontracted work must stay within the bargaining unit and generally under the

same terms as traditionally employed workers (Alexander, 2002).

The Culinary Union is not only successful at maintaining a high standard of

living for its current members; it also has had a very successful external organizing

program. In the 1990s, the Culinary Union was one of the fastest growing private

sector unions in the country increasing its memberships by 250 percent. Its

membership grew from around 17,000 in 1987 to more than 45,000 in 2000

1
 2

(Alexander, 2005). So far this decade it has organized more than 10,000 workers

(Kiraly, 2005, Meyerson, 2005).

In its 2002 round of negotiations with most of Las Vegas’s casino operators,

the Culinary Union continued to build on its past successes, negotiating a contract that

that local union leaders consider to be one of its best in recent memory. The union

obtained a five year deal that called for annual increases in compensation that were

more than twice as large as those negotiated in previous contracts (Smith 1998b, Las

Vegas Review Journal, 2002c). It also protected the Culinary Union’s healthcare plan,

which provides members with premium free family coverage with minimal co-pays

(Pappageorge, 2003, Culinary Health Fund, 2005). Furthermore, the contract

introduced new rules that reduced housekeeper’s workload and protected them from

hazardous materials (Pappageorge, 2003, Simpson, 2002b). The ability of the

Culinary Union to obtain such a strong contract was made more remarkable by the fact

that it was obtained in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which caused a severe downturn in

Las Vegas’s casino industry and had tremendous negative repercussions for the local

economy as a whole (Pappageorge, 2003).

This thesis is a case study of the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive

contract campaign. It will analyze the union’s campaign strategy and discuss its links

to the external context of Las Vegas’s casino industry as well as the internal context of

the Culinary Union culture, structure, long-term strategies and prior practices. This

study will show that the success of the Culinary Union’s comprehensive contract

campaign strategy in 2002, was the result not just of the external context the union

faced, or the short term strategies the union employed specifically for the negotiations,

but also was the product of long-term strategies the union had been pursuing during its

revitalization process that had been taking place over the prior 15 years. In other

words this study will provide a thorough analysis of the Culinary Union’s strategies
 3

during and prior to the 2002 round of contract negotiations as well as external

contextual factors that the union has confronted in Las Vegas’s casino industry. In so

doing it will discuss how the Culinary Union employed a set of strategies in its 2002

comprehensive contract campaign that successfully navigated both external and

internal contextual factors confronting it in order to enhance its power at the

bargaining table.

In examining the long-term and short-term strategies and tactics utilized by the

Culinary Union during and prior to its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign, this

thesis will borrow the definitions of union strategies and union tactics in Turner

(2005). Turner defines union strategies as “more or less coherent overall

organizational plans, implemented in pursuit of agreed-upon goals.” In the same

article Turner defines union tactics as the “particular initiatives designed to further a

union’s chosen strategy.” (Turner, 2005)

Internal and External Context

The Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract campaign was profoundly

influenced by the context in which it took place. The strategy pursued by the Culinary

Union in its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign was well suited to the external
bargaining environment facing the union as well as to the set of internal factors arising

out of the organization itself. These contextual factors influenced the Culinary

Union’s strategic choices as well as the effectiveness of the strategies the Culinary

Union ultimately employed. These contextual factors arose both out of the

environment in which the Culinary Union operates, and from within the Culinary

Union itself. They interacted with each other and with the strategies employed by

casino employers to form the context for the 2002 contract negotiations

(Bronfenbrenner, 2003, Hickey, 2003). Therefore, when analyzing the strategies that

made up the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract campaign strategy it is

 4

important to study how the Culinary Union’s perceptions of its bargaining context

influenced its strategic choices as well as how contextual factors influenced the

effectiveness of the union’s strategies themselves.

The foundation of the Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign was its ability

to mobilize its members and threaten casino employers with an effective strike. Rank-

and-file mobilization was essential for the Culinary Union because large-scale strikes

could still be used effectively in Las Vegas’s casino industry. Over the last 15 years

the Culinary Union has maintained a long-term strategy designed to increase its ability

to mobilize its members for a large scale strike, one primary reasons for this being the

local casino industry’s continued susceptibility to strikes.

In addition to increasing its rank-and-file member mobilization capacity, the

Culinary Union, as part of its revitalization process, has also developed the capacity to

employ particularly effective corporate pressure tactics. These tactics were employed

successfully in the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract campaign and took

advantage of several characteristics of the local casino industry, such as the large

amount of debt casino operators had amassed and operators concerns about the public

image of the casino industry. In its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign, the

Culinary Union, used corporate pressure tactics to legitimize its strike threat amongst

various stakeholders who influenced the decision making process of casino operators

such as their creditors.

Culture, Long-Term Strategies, and Prior Practices

As mentioned previously, the Culinary Union 2002 contract campaign

benefited greatly from the prior practices of the union in the 15 years leading up to the

campaign. Since 1987, the Culinary Union has implemented a broad range of

innovative and ambitious strategic initiatives as part of an overall strategy to revitalize

itself after a decade or more of declining power. These initiatives were undertaken
 5

across the entire range of the union’s activities including contract bargaining, contract

administration, external organizing, and politics. The Culinary Union’s revitalization

initiatives were comprehensive and blurred the lines separating these traditional

categories of union activity, where initiatives in multiple areas were complementary.

Figure 1.1 depicts the interrelated nature of the Culinary Union’s strategic initiatives

prior to the 2002 contract campaign as they relate to the effectiveness of the campaign

itself.

There are numerous examples of how the Culinary Union’s prior practices and

long-term strategies influenced and aided its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign.

For instance, the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy is the foundation

of its rank-and-file mobilization efforts. The contract administration strategy

employed by the Culinary Union is similar to the one described by Teresa Cornrow

(1991). Both contract administration strategies are based upon the principles of the

organizing model of trade unionism and one of the primary goals of both strategies is

to cultivate a less passive rank-and-file membership. Through its contract

administration strategy, the Culinary Union communicates, educates, and trains

members, as well as recruits rank-and-file leaders to become shop stewards, internal

organizers, external organizers, political/community organizers, and even political

candidates for state and local elections. Therefore, the contract administration

procedure plays a significant role as a mobilizing agent on the shop floor, thus greatly

increased the Culinary Union’s capacity to mobilize its members for the 2002 round of

negotiations (Cornrow, 1991). Like its contract administration strategy, the Culinary

Union’s political, external organizing, and previous contract campaign strategies also

emphasized rank-and-file participation and therefore similarly helped to mobilize the

local’s rank-and-file membership.

 6

Union Strategies & Tactics

Contract Political
Bargaining Strategies
Strategies

Contract
Administration
Strategies

External
Organizing
Strategies

Contextual Variables Employer Strategies

& Tactics

Figure 1.1 Relationship between union strategies in different areas of union activity as
well as external environment.

Overall the union’s strategies in these four areas contributed to the creation of

a culture within the Culinary Union that placed a high value on rank-and-file

participation in the union. For example, as Rick Fantasia and Kim Voss point out
 7

(2004), the Culinary Union’s external organizing strategies often involved mobilizing

rank-and-file members for large-scale protests outside of organizing casinos, which in

many cases lead to mass arrests. These activities, increased the level of activism

amongst rank-and-file members, and helped generate a general culture of mobilization

within the Culinary Union (Fantasia & Voss, 2004). This example also highlights

how the Culinary Union’s contract bargaining, contract administration, external

organizing, and political activities are designed by the union leadership are mutually

reinforcing.

Therefore the Culinary Union, because of its general organizational culture,

strategies, and practices prior to the 2002 round of negotiations, was already well

prepared to run a contract campaign like the one it ran in 2002. Through its contract

administration strategy, the Culinary Union had developed strong communication

links between its leaders and its rank-and-file membership. The local had also

identified rank-and-file leaders and provided them with some of the skills and

experiences necessary for the contract campaign. Furthermore, as a result of previous

comprehensive contract campaign it had engaged in, the Culinary Union had also

previously exposed its rank-and-file membership to many of the tactics that were

going to be part of its 2002 contract campaign. Finally, through strategies pursued in

all of its areas of activity, the Culinary Union had developed an overall organizational

culture that would fully support the rank-and-file mobilization effort necessary to put

together and run an effective contract campaign. This mobilization capacity was

especially important because casino operators were particularly vulnerable to strikes.

Therefore, the Culinary Union’s long-term strategies were well attuned to the

industrial relations context that it faced.

 8

Revitalization

This thesis study places the strategies employed by the Culinary Union at the

center of its analysis, and therefore makes the argument that union strategies do play a

significant role in determining industrial outcomes. It therefore builds upon the extant

union revitalization literature that has emerged over the past decade. In an article

appearing in the journal Work and Occupations Lowell Turner argues that the union

revitalization literature contains two primary tenets (Turner, 2005). The first of these

is that “contemporary circumstances provide openings for, and in some cases are

driving, innovative, proactive, and quite promising union strategies for renewal of

influence in changing world, national, and local conditions”. According to Turner the

second tenet of the union revitalization literature is that union strategies have been and

can continue to be instrumental in promoting workplace, social, and political change

in addition to engendering a revival in the labor movement itself.

This thesis builds upon these two themes by arguing that in the 2002 contract

negotiations, the Culinary Union utilized strategies that took advantage of points of

leverage provided by the contextual environment in order to increase its power at the

bargaining table. Therefore, as Turner has suggested the contextual environment of

Las Vegas held opportunities that the Culinary Union could strategically exploit in

order increases its ability to achieve its goals in the 2002 negotiations. Furthermore,

the strategies employed by the Culinary Union did play a significant role in

determining the outcome of the negotiations. The Culinary Union would not have

been able accomplish the outcome it did in the 2002 contract negotiations, if it had not

utilized a strategy so well suited to the bargaining context that it faced.

It is important to note that although a specific set of contextual opportunities

for unions may be unique to Las Vegas, different sets of similar opportunities may be

available in other contextual environments as well. In other words different sets of

 9

opportunities will be present in different industrial relations contexts, however there

maybe certain similarities shared across such contexts. For example, similar to the

gaming industry, healthcare and education have a similarly high level of contact

between the employees and customers, creating opportunities for unions to cultivate

their collective bargaining power through these relationships. However, management

culture and goals in these industries is often very different than that of the gaming

industry. This means that there may be some similarities between the kinds of union

strategies that will successful in these industries and the gaming industry. However,

the effectiveness of these strategies across contexts is also dependent on variables that

are internal to the union(s) operating in these different environments.

A number of union revitalization studies have analyzed how unions

strategically integrate tactics from a number of different areas of union activity such as

collective bargaining and organizing in order to achieve revitalization goals (Katz et

al. 2003, Hickey, 2003, Hurd et. al. 2003, Benz, 2004). All of these studies argue that

union attempts at revitalization will be more successful when they adopt a

comprehensive approach to revitalization that takes into account their collective

bargaining, organizing, and political activities. This study takes this argument one

step further by adding one often overlooked subcategory of collective bargaining:

contract administration. It will make the argument that the Culinary Union

approached its 2002 contract negotiations comprehensively, taking into account how

its activities in other areas would impact it and in turn be impacted by it. An

important corollary of this argument is that in order to understand the reasons for the

success of the Culinary Union in the 2002 contract campaign it is necessary to also

understand how the union’s strategies prior to the 2002 negotiations created a solid

foundation for the Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign, without which such an

ambitious campaign would not have been as successful.

 10

By examining the organizing model as it is applied to contract administration,

this study will also build on the branch of the revitalization literature that has dealt

with the organizing model of unionism. Although studies of the organizing model

predate the emergence of the union revitalization literature, they are now thought of as

being part of this literature. Studies examining the organizing model in a

contemporary context emerged during the early to mid-eighties and primarily analyzed

strategies utilized by unions to mobilize their members to fight back against

employers’ attempts to obtain concessionary contracts or to bust the union outright

(Slaughter, 1983, Balanoff, 1985, Metzgar, 1985). However, the term “organizing

model” began to take on a new meaning in the 1990s when the revitalization literature

began to focus on attempts by unions to organize non-union workplaces. In these

instances, the term “organizing model” was used to refer to unions that spent a larger

proportion of their resources on external organizing. However, within this latter

category external organizing strategies were still often linked to internal organizing

strategies. For example, many of these studies examined union strategies where in

order to make more resources available for non-union workers to organize, a union

would mobilize its own rank-and-file members to take greater responsibility for

contract servicing (Hurd, 2004). Finally, it is important to note that some scholars

have examined the organizing model as it is related to still other areas of union activity

such as contract administration and first contract negotiations. (Cornrow, 1991,

Bronfenbrenner, 1993, Markowitz, 1998).

This thesis draws upon both definitions of what constitutes an organizing

model of unionism. It looks at the organizing model as it relates to mobilizing

members for an upcoming contract campaign, which fits in with the first definition of

the organizing model. However, it also looks at how the Culinary Union’s external

organizing and internal organizing efforts interact with each other as well as the
 11

local’s activities in other areas. Furthermore, in its analysis of the Culinary Union’s

application of the organizing model to its collective bargaining functions, contract

administration and contract bargaining, this study discusses how the union

commitment literature supports arguments made by organizing model advocates that

unions pursuing strategies based on the model will benefit from increased rank-and-

file participation. Therefore, this discussion will give organizing model advocates

more empirical evidence to support their arguments’ evidence.

This case study also seeks to build on the numerous case studies of

comprehensive contract campaigns that have emerged as part of the union

revitalization literature in recent years (Rosenblum, 1995, Getman, 1998, O'Malley,

1999, Witt & Rand, 1999, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich, 2001, Bronfenbrenner &

Juravich, 2003, Hickey, 2003, Minchin, 2003). However, this thesis differs from the

previous studies in a variety of ways. First, all of the preceding examples of

comprehensive campaign case studies analyzed campaigns that included a protracted

strike or lockout, which occur in only a small fraction of contract negotiations.

Although there was a strike at one of the casinos involved in the 2002 contract

negotiations in Las Vegas, it was at the smallest casino involved in the negotiations,

and therefore, affected less than one half of one percent of the Culinary Union’s

membership. Furthermore, the strike only lasted a couple of days. Therefore, this

case study does not include a major strike or lockout and in this capacity is more

representative of typical contract negotiations, than the aforementioned examples of

case studies of comprehensive campaigns.

This fact is important to the union revitalization debate because if the kinds of

tactics that unions typically employ as part of a comprehensive contract campaign do

in fact increase union power at the bargaining table and beyond, unions need to learn

to utilize them in instances other than in the most extreme cases of labor-management
 12

discord. Therefore, it is important to begin to analyze the role of these tactics in

collective bargaining settings other than complete breakdowns in relations between

labor and management. Although relations between the Culinary Union and the

casino operators can be described as more contentious than usual in the 2002 round of

negotiations, both sides were committed to maintaining the bargaining relationship.

This cannot be said for most of the negotiations analyzed by most of the case studies

of comprehensive contract campaigns.

Another unique characteristic of this thesis is that it analyzes a union local that

is much further along in the revitalization process than almost any other in the United

States. Most other case studies of comprehensive contract campaigns have focused on

unions that are struggling to adapt to a more hostile bargaining environment and

therefore, have not made the kinds of strategic and tactical reforms the Culinary Union

had been implementing for more than a decade before the 2002 round of negotiations.

(Rosenblum, 1995, Getman, 1998, Witt & Rand, 1999, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich,

2001, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich, 2003, Hickey, 2003, Minchin, 2003).

In addition, other case studies that have looked at unions further along in the

revitalization process have not taken a sufficiently comprehensive view of the role of

prior union tactics strategies in influencing the unions comprehensive campaign

(Erickson et. al. 2002). This case study takes a more comprehensive view of the

Culinary Union’s strategies prior to its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign,

examining the union’s organizing, collective bargaining, political, and new member

orientation strategies and how the local’s strategies and tactics in these areas

influenced the campaign, both in terms of the local’s strategic choices and in terms of

the campaign’s overall effectiveness.

 13

Organization of Thesis

The remainder of this study will be divided into seven chapters. Chapter two,

the literature review, will show how this study fits into and contributes to the existing

union revitalization literature. It will focus on the three areas of the union

revitalization literature that are most directly related to issues discussed in this paper:

the literature dealing with strategic integration of union tactics in different areas of

activity, discussions of the organizing model as it is applied to a union’s collective

bargaining functions and how this is related to other areas of union activity, and

preceding case studies of comprehensive contract campaigns. The third chapter will

be the methodology section and will look at how data was collected for this case

study. Chapter four will describe the external context the Culinary Union faced in the

2002 contract negotiations. It will focus on the social, economic, and political

environment faced by the Culinary Union in the negotiations. This chapter will also

provide a detailed history of the gaming industry in Las Vegas. The fifth chapter will

discuss the historical development of the Culinary Union. This chapter will

specifically focus on the Culinary Union’s revitalization process through which the

Culinary Union developed the organizational capacities it has today. This chapter will

also discuss the influence of the Culinary Union’s revitalization process on its 2002

comprehensive contract campaign, particularly in terms of its strategic decision

making and the effectiveness of the strategies that it employed in the campaign. The

sixth chapter will be a description of the strategy the Culinary Union used in its 2002

contract campaign. Chapter seven is the case study itself describing the 2002 contract

campaign and how the strategy employed the Culinary Union for the campaign

actually played out. Chapter eight, the conclusion, analyzes how the Culinary Union’s

2002 comprehensive contract campaign was influenced by both the union’s external

environment and the strategies the union employed in the years prior to the campaign.
 14

It also discusses the implications of this case study for the union revitalization

literature and suggest ideas for future research.

Chapter II: Literature Review

Introduction

This case study puts union strategy at the core of its analysis and therefore

builds on the union revitalization literature that has emerged over the past twelve

years. The crux of the union revitalization literature is that union strategies play a

significant role in determining labor relations outcomes. This is a departure from the

previous literature which tended to focus on structural determinants, management

strategies, or a combination of the two. Scholars at the progressive margins of the

industrial relations field have long examined topics which later became core areas

covered by the industrial revitalization literature, such as innovative external

organizing tactics, community alliances, and creative grassroots rank-and-file

mobilization tactics. However, it was not until the early 1990s, when John Sweeny

took over the presidency of the AFL-CIO and industrial relations scholars began to

focus their attention on innovative collective bargaining, external organizing, and

political strategies utilized by a few unions, such as SEIU, that these types of studies

would enter the mainstream (Turner, 2005).

Although scholars have discussed labor movement revitalization for more than

a decade, only recently have they begun to come up with a clear definition of the

concept. Martin Behrens, Kerstin Hamann, and Richard Hurd (2004) recently defined

union revitalization as the degree to which unions, locals, and national movements

have regained power among the various dimensions that capture the main orientation

or spheres of union activity. The spheres of union activity listed by Behrens et al.

cover the collective bargaining, organizing, political functions of unions that were

discussed in the first chapter of this study. In addition to these three spheres of union

activity, Behrens et al. suggest a fourth institutional dimension, which addresses a

union’s organizational structures and governance, as well as internal dynamics.

15
 16

According to Behrens et al. this dimension captures a “union’s capacity to adjust to

new contexts, embrace new strategies, and support change in general.” This fourth

dimension is captured in this case study through a description of how the Culinary

Union has successfully been able to initiate and carry out the institutional changes

necessary to adapt to changes in its contextual environment.

Overall the Culinary Union has met most of the criteria set out by Behrens et

al. for what constitutes a revitalized union at the local level. The local has increased

its membership dramatically and successfully incorporated into the union structure

new ethnic groups that have entered the casino workforce. The Culinary Union has

also increased its collective bargaining power, thereby increasing the standard of

living of its members, while the standard of living for most unskilled service workers

in the United States has been declining. Furthermore, it has increased its political

power not just at the local but also at the state level, becoming one of the most

powerful political forces in the state. Finally, the Culinary Union has undergone the

types of internal reforms that have made it possible for it to successfully employ the

kinds of innovative tactics and strategies, which have made its revitalization possible

(Behrens et al. 2004).

In an article he authored in the journal Work and Occupations, Lowell Turner

(2005) identifies two core arguments contained in the union revitalization literature.

The first argument is that “contemporary circumstances provide openings for, and in

some cases are driving innovative, proactive, and quite promising union strategies for

the renewal of influence in changing world, national, and local conditions.” The

second is that union strategies matter. Turner states that union strategies, “have been

and continue to be instrumental in promoting workplace, social and political change,

and contain as well the potential for substantial breakthroughs in broader democratic

revitalization.” This case study illustrates both of these key points. It looks at how the
 17

Culinary Union’s strategy in the 2002 negotiations built upon the contextual variables

faced by the local and increased the union’s power at the bargaining table. This study

also analyzes the interaction between contextual variables, union strategies, and

industrial relations outcomes in the years prior to the 2002 negotiations and how this

interaction influenced the effectiveness and the Culinary Union’s choice of strategies

in the 2002 negotiations.

Rob Hickey (2003) argues that the revitalization literature is fundamentally

about how unions reconstitute bargaining power in a changing economic environment

while also confronting increasing levels of employer hostility. He identifies four

indicators of union revitalization: increased political influence, increased bargaining

power, increased union density and strategic internal organizational reforms. These

four signs of union revitalization correspond to the dimensions of union activity

described by Behrens et al. (2004) Hickey also goes on to identify attributes of a fully

revitalized union: a vision of political, economic, and social justice; a culture of

membership involvement, outreach, and growth; membership education, and

leadership development; on-going strategic innovation; and comprehensive, integrated

strategies for organizing, political action, and collective bargaining. This study will

show how by 2002 the Culinary Union had many of these attributes and how these

attributes contributed to the union’s choice of bargaining strategy and the effectiveness

of this strategy in its 2002 contract campaign. (Hickey 2003).

The union revitalization literature has covered a broad range of union activity

from a broad range of viewpoints. However, this case study relates most directly to

three common topics addresses by the union revitalization literature: comprehensive

contract campaigns, the strategic integration of union tactics across different

dimensions of union activity and the organizing model as it relates to contract

administration.
 18

Collective Bargaining and Union Revitalization

Other than case studies of comprehensive campaigns, collective bargaining

activities of unions have largely been ignored by the union revitalization literature.

Likewise, most of the traditional collective bargaining literature has ignored the role of

union tactics in influencing industrial relations outcomes. Union revitalization

scholars have tended to treat collective bargaining as something that happens after

union revitalization, rather than part of the revitalization process itself (Hickey, 2003).

Also, many union revitalization scholars treat collective bargaining as something that

is necessarily in competition for scarce union resources with other areas of union

activity that are vital to revitalization such as external organizing (Fletcher & Hurd,

1998,Voss & Sherman, 2000). These authors create a false dichotomy between these

two areas of union activity and do not recognize their interconnectivity nor how

tactical initiatives in one of these areas can help the union achieve its goals in another.

This study will highlight the mutually reinforcing nature of the Culinary Union’s

external organizing and collective bargaining strategies, in its description of how the

local’s prior practices influenced its 2002 contract campaign.

Since collective bargaining has largely been ignored by revitalization scholars

it is necessary to examine other industrial relations traditions and how they

conceptualized bargaining power and the role union strategies play in influencing it.

The classical economic, institutionalist, dependency, and strategic choice strands of

the collective bargaining literature each conceptualize bargaining power differently.

Furthermore, each tradition holds a different view of the role strategies play in

influencing collective bargaining outcomes. However, with the exception of

dependency theory, each of these traditions minimizes the influence union strategy

and tactics can have over collective bargaining outcomes. These four traditions

predate the union revitalization literature, and therefore also provide a good
 19

foundation for a discussion of the union revitalization literature as it relates to

collective bargaining.

In order to adequately discuss bargaining power it is important to have a clear

definition of the concept. The classical economic tradition frames union power as

monopoly power and therefore measures the divergence of union wage rates from the

market rate in order to determine bargaining power (Hicks, 1932). However, this

tradition fails to take into account bargaining power’s influence on non-wage issues,

or sources of power outside the degree of product and labor market elasticity. These

factors were especially important considering the fact that one of the principal issues

in the 2002 contract negotiations, workload, was a non-wage issue.

Compared to the classical economists, institutional economists have a much

more inclusive definition of collective bargaining power. For example, Chamberlain

and Kuhn (1965) defined bargaining power simply as the “ability to secure an

agreement on one’s own terms.” Similarly, Slichter (1940) defined bargaining power

as the cost to party A of imposing a loss on party B. Along comparable lines Kochan

(1980) defined bargaining power as the “the ability of one party to achieve its goals

when faced with opposition from another party to the bargaining process.”

In their summary of the institutionalist approach to bargaining power, Leap

and Grigsby (1986) point out that most institutionalist conceptualizations of

bargaining power “involve ‘costs that are incurred by or imposed upon one side or the

other.’” These cost can be the direct costs of concessions, such as wage gains or

losses, or secondary costs of concessions, such as the effects of pattern bargaining.

According to the institutionalist conceptualization of bargaining power these costs

associated with collective bargaining are “based on such factors as elasticity of

product demand, business and market cycles, competitive position of a firm, labor

intensity, and availability of substitute labor.”

 20

Occasionally, institutionalists will refer to some sort of strategic component,

but this factor is generally downplayed in the literature (Leap and Grigsby 1986).

Likewise, Hickey (2003), in summarizing the institutionalist literature explains,

“While the institutionalist tradition has been strong in explaining the role of structural

(i.e. environmental) determinants on bargaining power…it has provided fewer insights

into the dynamic nature of collective bargaining.” When referring to the “dynamic

nature of collective bargaining” Hickey is alluding to the role of strategic choice on

the part of either party in determining collective bargaining outcomes.

Therefore, one of the primary weaknesses of the institutionalist approach to

collective bargaining power is that it focuses primarily on the structural factors that

contribute to bargaining power and downplays the influence of union and employer

strategies in creating bargaining power. Institutionalists tend to focus on factors such

as the concentration of product market, attributes of the labor market, union density,

characteristics of the parties and the industry, and government policies as the primary

factors influencing collective bargaining outcomes. For example, Thomas Kochan

(1980) argues that the triggering forces affecting bargaining outcomes are structural

variables, especially those of an economic nature. Kochan sees structural variables as

shaping organizational characteristics of both unions and employers, bargaining

structure, the negotiations process, and bargaining power.

By including bargaining tactics and strategies in their model, dependency

theorists such as Samuel Bacharach and Ed Lawler correct some of the shortcoming of

the institutionalist tradition. In their book, Bargaining Power, Tactics, and Outcomes

Bacharach and Lawler (1981) argue that the critical factor in collective bargaining is

the parties’ perceptions of relative power. According to this theory, bargaining power

is determined by a bargainer’s perception of its dependence on its counterpart and its

counterpart’s perception of its own dependence on the bargainer. The more dependant
 21

a bargainer perceives itself to be the less bargaining power it will have. Likewise, the

more dependant a bargainer’s counterpart perceives itself to be, the more bargaining

power the bargainer will have at the bargaining table. Union and management

strategies play key roles in Bacharach and Lawler's theory because they can be used to

influence perceptions of power in the bargaining relationship. Bacharach and Lawler's

theory also highlights the interactive relationship between bargainer's perceptions of

power in the bargaining relationship and their strategic choices.

However, Bacharach and Lawler's model has two shortcomings. First, they

fail to identify specific examples of strategies used by unions or management to

influence each other’s perceptions of dependence (Bronfenbrenner, 1993). Secondly,

their theory focuses exclusively on the relationship between employers and unions;

thereby it does not sufficiently take into account contextual determinants of bargaining

power, as well as the interactive relationship between bargaining context and

bargaining strategies (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, Hickey, 2003).

Strategic choice theory is another major strand in the collective bargaining

literature that began to analyze the role of strategy in determining collective

bargaining outcomes. Perhaps the most well known work in this branch of the

literature is Transformation of American Industrial Relations by Kochan, Katz, and

McKersie (1986). In this book the authors examine the significant changes that took

place in the American industrial relations system in the 1980s and found that structural

factors alone could not explain the profound transformations that took place during

this era. They argue that, in addition to structural factors, business strategies were a

mechanism behind this change. According to the strategic choice model they

proposed, business strategies adjust to changes in the external environment in ways

that are consistent with the values of management and the firms’ historical attributes.

While this model does acknowledge that union strategies have some degree of
 22

influence over collective bargaining outcomes, it clearly places business strategy at the

center of its analysis.

Kochan et al. propose three levels of collective bargaining activity. The top

tier is long-term strategic activity such as investment strategies, which is generally a

protected realm of management rights. The second-tier of industrial relations activity

is the functional tier of collective bargaining, which includes such activities as contract

bargaining. This has been the focus of attention for most traditional industrial

relations researchers. The third-tier of industrial relations activity in Kochan et al.’s

(1986) model is the workplace level tier, where industrial relations policies are played

out and affect individuals, supervisors, and union representatives on a day-to-day

basis. This third tier corresponds most directly with union contract administration

activities.

Although, strategic choice theory downplays the influence of union strategies

in determining collective bargaining outcomes, it does provide some insights that are

valuable to this case study. First, the model takes into account the dynamic interplay

between the structural factors and parties’ strategies choices in collective bargaining.

Secondly, by integrating the three levels of industrial relations activity, the model

acknowledges the interactive relationship among activity at all three levels. As

proposed in this case study of the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract

campaign, contract administration or third-tier activities can have a profound impact

on the second-level of activity, where contract negotiations usually take place

(Kochan, Katz, & McKersie, 1986).

Leap and Grigsby (1986), developed a hybrid of the strategic choice and

dependency models of power. In their study, they develop a comprehensive concept

of collective bargaining power that takes into account the origins of power, the factors

that enhance or diminish collective bargaining power, and the forms and uses of that
 23

power. Leap and Grigsby’s concept begins with potential power, which is the total

amount of power available to a party given the contextual factors that party faces. The

parties in the collective bargaining relationship employ strategies and tactics that

transform this potential power into enacted power. These strategies and tactics have

implications for both long and short-term collective bargaining outcomes and can also

influence the contextual factors each party faces in the future.

Leap and Grigsby’s model provides a good foundation for the model employed

in this case study. On a basic level, both the model described in this case study and

the model developed by Leap and Grigsby place union and employer strategy at the

center of the analysis. Also, both models conceptualize collective bargaining power in

a dynamic context, where the parties’ bargaining strategies can influence contextual

variables and bargaining outcomes over both the long and short term.

However, these two models differ in some important areas. First, Leap and

Grigsby’s model does not discuss how union external organizing and politics can

influence collective bargaining power and bargaining outcomes. In fact Leap and

Grigsby’s model lists public policy as an uncontrollable variable, while as this study

will show, union strategy can influence public policy, which in turn can influence

collective bargaining outcomes.

There have been a number of other studies outside the union revitalization

literature that have examined the influence of union strategies on collective bargaining

outcomes. However, most of these are of limited relevance to this study of the

Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign because these other studies primarily look

at the strategies utilized by unions a national level, while this study looks at them at

the local level.1 For example, in their study entitled Union Structural Choices Fiorito,

1
HERE is a decentralized union, with bargaining only taking place on a city by city basis. In fact, the
collective bargaining strategies employed by the Culinary Union are not representative of those used by
the majority of other HERE locals before 2002.
 24

Gramm, and Hendricks (1991) introduce a model of union behavior based upon

strategic choice theory. They focus on the causal relationship between union goals,

strategies, structures, and performance, which are all in turn influenced by external

environmental factors.

Fiorito et al. focus on a variety of areas of union activity including collective

bargaining. In regard to collective bargaining, the authors identify three types of

union strategy. The first is the monopoly strategy; in which the union seeks to control

the labor market supply, typically through centralized bargaining. Fiorito et al.

contend that unions who pursue this strategy tend to be in highly competitive

industries, with dispersed production centers, multiplant firms, small local unions, and

high union density.

They refer to the second type of union strategy as the efficiency strategy,

where unions typically decentralize control over collective bargaining. Unions usually

pursue this strategy where external environmental conditions are highly diverse; where

workers are professional, semiprofessional, or have quasi-managerial responsibilities;

and where firms have demonstrated a high-degree of acceptance of unions and

collective bargaining.

Fiorito et al. refer to the third strategy in their model as the information

strategy. Unions pursuing this strategy will tend to centralize control over the

bargaining process, if its local affiliates are small or if it is negotiating with a large

multidivisional company. Although, Fiorito et al.’s model inserts a degree of union

strategy into the strategic choice model, the effect of specific strategies on collective

bargaining at the local level is not discussed; rather Fiorito et al. focus mainly on how

union strategies influence bargaining structures on the national level.

A number of scholars have examined the relationship between globalization

and collective bargaining strategies and outcomes (Gordon & Turner, 2000, Nissen,
 25

2002, Cooke, 2003, Cornfield & McCammon, 2003). However, much of this research

has focused on industries that are not as geographically fixed as the casino industry in

Las Vegas. In other words unlike employers in manufacturing and many service

industries, employers in Las Vegas’s casino industries cannot move to new locations.

Furthermore, Las Vegas casino operators are selling a unique product, meaning that

the Las Vegas experience cannot be had anywhere else, even where casino style

gambling is legal. This means that casino employees only have very limited

competition from their counterparts overseas or in other regions of the United States

(Rothman, 2003). This is demonstrated by the fact that while other communities in

Nevada have struggled to remain competitive as casino style gaming has proliferated

throughout the United States and around the world, Las Vegas, particularly along the

strip, has continued to thrive.

Despite its focus on industries where overseas competition plays an important

role in determining labor relations outcomes, William Cooke’s study Shifting the

Balance of Power: Transnational Collective Bargaining in a Era of Corporate

Globalization? (2003) provides some insights into the nature of power in industrial

relations. In his study, Cooke identifies two types of power: 1) the employer’s overall

ability to pay or the total gain achievable in collective bargaining, and 2) the relative

power between the union and the employer which determines the distributive

parameters of that total gain. Factors that influence relative power are the external

environment as well as employer and union strategies. Cooke’s list of union strategies

include increasing costs to employers through striking or leveraging employers

through their relationships with other stakeholders. Although Cooke recognizes the

role of union strategies in determining labor relations outcomes as well as the

importance of union leveraging tactics other than traditional strikes, the relevance of

his model to this case study is limited by the fact that casino workers in Las Vegas are
 26

not subject to the same kinds of globalization pressures as workers in the industries

discussed by Cooke.

Comprehensive Contract Campaigns

Although the union revitalization literature dealing with collective bargaining

is relatively thin, there have been a number of important case studies published in this

area. However, most of these studies have been case studies of single comprehensive

or corporate campaigns. Examples of such studies include Bronfenbrenner and

Juravich's book on USWA's campaign against the Ravenswood Aluminum Company

(2000) as well as their chapter on USWA's campaign against Bridgestone/Firestone

(2003), Getman's book on the United Paperworker's campaign against International

Paper (1998), Rosenblum's book on the failed Phelps Dodge strike (1995), Hickey's

case study of PACE's contract campaign against Crown Petroleum (2003), Minchin’s

book on the BASF strike (2002), as well as O'Malley's thesis (1999) and Witt and

Wilson's article on the 1997 IBT strike against UPS (1999).

These case studies provide a number of valuable insights into the role union

tactics play in influencing collective bargaining outcomes. First, they provide a

detailed description of the kinds of innovative tactics and strategies that revitalizing

unions are beginning to use to increase their power and win significant gains at the

bargaining table. Tactics such as international solidarity efforts, shareholder proxy

fights, innovative media campaigns, boycotts, community coalitions, member

mobilization, and regulatory pressure efforts are all discussed in the case studies listed

in the previous paragraph. These case studies further demonstrate that traditional

bargaining strategies such as strikes and picketing are alone insufficient in helping the

union achieve its goals at the bargaining table. Likewise, these studies also show that

corporate campaign tactics such as boycotts, community coalitions, and regulatory

pressure efforts are rendered more effective when they are combined with rank-and-
 27

file member mobilization around the campaign. For example, USWA efforts to gain

the support of the unions that represented Bridgestone/Firestone workers in Japan

were much more successful when the USWA brought rank-and-file members to Japan

to meet with the Japanese unionists and talk about how Bridgestone/Firestone strike

has affected them and their families (Juravich & Bronfenbrenner, 1999).

Secondly, these case studies provide a detailed analysis of how these tactics

interact with each other as well as the contextual factors within which each

comprehensive campaign operates. For example, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich’s book

on the USWA campaign against the Ravenswood Aluminum Company (2003)

demonstrates how individual campaign tactics interacted with one another in order to

focus publicity on an employer whose corporate strategy relied on keeping a low

profile. No one tactic in particular brought attention to the employer; rather it was a

combination of regulatory, international solidarity, political, and rank-and-file

mobilization tactics that accomplished this goal. Furthermore, the campaign’s rank-

and-file mobilization efforts were greatly aided by the close-knit community in which

the campaign took place and the long tenure most of the employees had at the plant.

Finally, these case studies provide insight into how a union’s past practices

influence the types and effectiveness of the strategies and tactics that make up the

union’s comprehensive campaigns. For example, O’Malley’s (1999), writing about

the UPS strike, discusses how the reforms implemented by Ron Carey after he became

President of the IBT facilitated the implementation of an effective comprehensive

campaign when the union stuck UPS in 1997. The list of reforms implemented by

Carey prior to UPS strike includes the creation of a corporate campaign department,

an increase in funding for the member education and communications departments,

and launching an aggressive offensive against internal union corruption. Furthermore,

in the years between Carey’s election and the UPS strike the IBT utilized
 28

comprehensive campaigns against a number of smaller employers such as Ryder

Truck System Inc. and Trucking Management, Inc. These campaigns acted as proving

grounds for the kinds of tactics that the IBT would use against UPS in 1997. For

instance, in these campaigns the IBT sought to transition the union from its traditional

top-down approaches to contract negotiations, which minimized rank-and-file

mobilization, to a more open negotiation strategy, which sought to involve and

mobilize members. Furthermore, in between rounds of negotiations the union sought

to develop strong communication networks between the union leadership and its rank-

and-file membership, which facilitated rank-and-mobilization as well as leadership

development. These earlier efforts proved to have a positive effect for the Teamsters

in their strike against UPS. The union was able to mobilize its workers around the

country to honor the union’s picket lines during the strike, and even more remarkably,

utilize an innovative media campaign which garnered the support of the public for the

workers.

However, these case studies have a variety of shortcomings that revolve

around their limited generalizability. Although all case studies share this problem to a

certain extent, it is especially pronounced in regard to the existing case studies of

comprehensive contract campaigns. This is because most of the case studies cited deal

with particularly dramatic and/or lengthy strikes or lockouts that are the most extreme

examples of modern industrial conflict. In fact, in most of these case studies, the

employer(s) is engaged in all-out efforts to end the bargaining relationship with the

union altogether. In the case studies where employers are not trying to bust the union,

they are frequently demanding particularly dramatic concessions, which could result in

the union ultimately being decertified. However, these types of conditions do not

characterize the vast majority of labor negotiations, and even more importantly, unions

are increasingly making comprehensive campaign strategies a common part of their

 29

arsenal and not just something that is rolled out at the last minute when faced with a

particularly intransigent employer.

In the case of the Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign, comprehensive

campaign tactics were a routine part of its bargaining strategy, irrespective of whether

the union knew it was going to be engaged in a particularly acrimonious round of

negotiations with the employer or not. In fact, the Culinary Union, like a growing

number of other union locals, sees comprehensive campaign strategies as a means to

create an appearance of increased bargaining power and militancy prior to the

negotiations in order to encourage employers to settle on terms favorable to the union

rather than engage in a protracted battle with the union. Examples of such locals

include SEIU Local 1199NY, SEIU Local 1877, UNITE- HERE Local 26, UNITE-

HERE Local 2, amongst others. Therefore, an account of a comprehensive contract

campaign taking place in a more common less acrimonious bargaining context is

missing from the previously cited case study research on the subject.

Another limitation of these case studies is that most of them involve unions

that had not or were just beginning to experiment with the kinds of tactics and

strategies that are characteristic of the revitalization process. More specifically, with

the exception of case studies covering the UPS and Goodyear/Firestone strikes, most

of the unions covered in these case studies had had only limited experience with

comprehensive campaigns at all (O’Malley, 1999, Juravich & Bronfenbrenner, 2003).

With the exception of a few studies, analyses of comprehensive campaigns in unions

that have moved beyond the initial transformational phase of revitalization has largely

been absent.

However, several local unions, such as the Culinary Union who went through

their initial transformational process more that a decade before the 2002 negotiations,

are moving beyond this initial transformational phase of the revitalization process and
 30

making comprehensive contract campaigns a regular part of their strategic repertoire.

This new context may have several implications for comprehensive campaigns; for

example, does experience gained from past comprehensive campaigns increase a

union’s capacity to wage more effective campaign in the future, or do they tend to

burn out staff and rank-and-file activists, and enable employers to develop more

effectives responses to the campaigns? Furthermore, it is important to gain a better

understanding of how the organizing, political and contract administration policies of

a union further along in the revitalizing process interact with each other and with the

union’s comprehensive contract campaign. This case study of the Culinary Union’s

2002 contract campaign strategy does this by examining the local’s prior collective

bargaining, organizing, and political strategies and their influence on the union’s 2002

comprehensive contract campaign.

In addition to the case studies discussed in this article there are a few studies

within the union revitalization literature that take a different methodological approach

to studying comprehensive contract campaigns, for example looking at multiple

campaigns in a single study. One of the first studies of corporate campaigns was

Perry’s comparative analysis of ten corporate campaigns. In his book, Union

Corporate Campaigns, Perry (1987) identifies several dimensions common to most

corporate campaigns. The first of these dimensions is that the union attempts to

control the public’s perception as to what the major issues of the campaign are so as to

gain the moral high ground. This aspect of the campaign can be supported by public

rallies and protests. The second dimension is the attempt by the union to expand the

conflict beyond the immediate workplace. This can be done through coalition

building, or by engaging the employer’s board of directors, shareholders, and those

entities with which the firm has a significant relationship. In corporate campaigns

unions also solicit the support of political officials and utilize regulatory agencies to
 31

further gain leverage on the employer. Boycotts and other types of consumer-based

pressure tactics make up the final component of corporate campaigns. Although Perry

provides a thorough list of the kinds of tactics that make up a corporate campaign, he

ignores the rank-and-file mobilization strategies that distinguish corporate campaigns

from their more rank-and-file intensive counterparts: comprehensive campaigns. This

point is especially important because rank-and-file mobilization was the core element

of the Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign strategy, even tactics that are not

necessarily rank-and-file intensive such as the local’s efforts to pressure the union

through shareholders or the media had significant rank-and-file components.

Jarley and Maranto’s (1990) article on union corporate campaigns, although it

too by definition overlooked union mobilization tactics that often accompany

corporate campaigns, provides some insights of value for a case study of the Culinary

Union’s 2002 contract campaign. First, Jarley and Maranto argue that individual

tactics by themselves generally do not trigger the settlement process; rather it is the

cumulative effect of these tactics which pushes the parties towards settlement. This

insight is important in light of the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract

campaign in that the union strategy was composed of a set of mutually reinforcing

tactics. These tactics gave the union significantly more power if they were employed

in combination rather than separately. Jarley and Maranto (1990) also point out that

firms that rely on good public image are more sensitive to corporate campaigns. This

insight is also very relevant to the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract

campaign as casino employers rely on maintaining a good image in order to expand

into new gaming jurisdictions. Casino employers were especially sensitive to

damaging information about their labor policies because the provision of good jobs is

one of their major selling points when trying to move into new jurisdictions.
 32

Jarley and Maranto (1990) also note that successful union campaigns lead to

more sophisticated resistance on the part of employers, a point that is especially

relevant to Las Vegas because the Culinary Union regularly uses corporate campaigns

as part of their bargaining and new organizing strategies. This begs the question as to

whether the Culinary Union campaigns will retain their effectiveness in the future if

employer responses become more effective. Therefore, although Jarley and Moranto

exclusively focus on corporate campaign tactics at the expense of looking at rank-and-

file intensive tactics that distinguish comprehensive campaigns, their study still

provides some insights that are relevant to the Culinary Unions 2002 comprehensive

contract campaign in Las Vegas.

Bronfenbrenner (1993) improves upon dependency and strategic choice

theories and studies that exclusively examine corporate campaign tactics by

identifying rank-and-file intensive strategies and tactics employed by unions and

management in first contract campaigns, such as house calls and captive audience

meetings, and empirically tests their effect on campaign outcome. She argues that:

"Unions have greater success in first contract campaigns when they utilize a

multifaceted rank-and-file intensive campaign strategy involving external and internal

organizing and pressure tactics." Thus, her analysis goes beyond the corporate

campaigns analyzed by Perry and Jarley and Maranto by introducing a rank-and-file

element to these campaigns. Corporate campaigns that have this additional rank-and-

file component are generally referred to as comprehensive campaigns. Although

Bronfenbrenner only described comprehensive campaigns in the context of first

contract negotiations, the types of mobilization tactics described by Bronfenbrenner’s

are similar to the ones used by the Culinary Union in their 2002 round of negotiations.

In the same study, Bronfenbrenner (1993) also analyzes the influence of

contextual variables, such as organizer background or bargaining unit size, on the

 33

outcome of first contract campaigns and argues that contextual variables have an

interactive relationship with union and management strategies in first contract

campaigns. She argues "that contextual factors influence bargaining power,

bargaining power influences union and employer choice of tactics, yet tactics

influence contextual factors and bargaining power."

This interactive relationship between contextual variables and union tactics is

also of particular relevance to this case study. The importance of the relationship

between context and tactics is demonstrated by comparing the relevance of traditional

labor actions such as strikes and pickets in the Culinary Union 2002 comprehensive

contract campaign to those in the case studies previously discussed in this section. For

example, the vast majority of the case studies cited above discuss campaigns against

employers in the manufacturing sector, where the effectiveness of strikes had been

significantly curtailed during the Reagan years. However, in Las Vegas’s casino

industry, because strikes and pickets can still effectively disrupt the provision of

services to consumers, they have retained much of their traditional relevance for the

union. Therefore, while traditional tactics such as strikes and picketing played limited

roles in most of the comprehensive campaigns in the previously cited studies, the

threat of a strike was the core element of the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive

campaign (Rosenblum, 1995, Getman, 1998, Juravich & Bronfenbrenner, 1999,

Minchin, 2002, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich, 2003, Hickey, 2003).

Although Bronfenbrenner's model deals specifically with first contract

campaigns, there have been a number of cases where these tactics have been

successfully applied to more mature collective bargaining relationships. For example,

in a paper published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, co-authors

Christopher Erickson, Catherine Fisk, Ruth Milkman, Daniel Mitchell, and Kent

Wong (2002) describe how the rank-and-file intensive contract campaign strategies
 34

discussed in Bronfenbrenner (1993) were employed by SEIU Local 1877 over three

rounds of negotiations with Los Angeles’s building services industry, beginning with

the first contract campaign. For instance, SEIU sought to increase their leverage in the

negotiations through massive street demonstrations that would garner media attention,

win public sympathy, and compel tenants and building owners to in turn pressure

building service employers to settle with the union. In order to do this, Local 1877

had to put together an aggressive rank-and-file mobilization campaign that entailed

substantial internal organizing, membership participation, and rank-and-file education.

Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich, in a chapter in the book Rekindling

the Movement: labor’s quest for relevance in the 21st century (2001), provide perhaps

the most comprehensive analysis of how unions can integrate rank-and-file

mobilization tactics, discussed by Bronfenbrenner and Erickson et al., with the

corporate campaign tactics discussed by Hickey into mutually reinforcing parts of an

overall collective bargaining strategy. In their chapter, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich

argue that unions can greatly increase their power in collective bargaining if they

employ a strategy that combines rank-and-file mobilization and corporate campaign

tactics in a mutually reinforcing and escalating manner, taking environmental factors

into careful account. They discuss a number of tactics that can be employed in

contract campaign strategies including: end user/consumer campaigns, community

coalitions, public relations campaigns, in-plant strategies, traditional picketing, etc.

However, they stress that there is no specific set of tactics with which a union

can automatically achieve its objectives; rather, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich argue

that a union must carefully select the combination of tactics which is best suited to its

bargaining environment and goals. More specifically, a union must do a careful

analysis of its opponent and identify ways in which it can pressure it to settle on terms

favorable to the union. This means a union must identify ways to make its opponent’s
 35

primary decision makers believe that it is in their interest to settle on terms favorable

to the union. Therefore, a union's contract campaign strategy must be carefully

tailored to each employer and bargaining context. This is essentially the same

conclusion reached by Bronfenbrenner in her study of first contract campaigns

(Bronfenbrenner, 1993).

Bronfenbrenner and Juravich (2001) also argue that it is important that unions

retain the capacity to launch a contract campaign even when not engaged in an all-out

struggle with an employer. First, they argue that employers will be more willing to

settle on terms favorable to a union when the employer perceives that the union has

the capacity to significantly threaten its interests. Secondly, Bronfenbrenner and

Juravich explain that the capacity to launch an effective corporate campaign takes at

least several months, if not years, to develop, so if a union waits until it is locked in a

life or death battle before deciding it wants to begin a corporate campaign it may

already be too late (Bronfenbrenner and Juravich 2001).

Finally, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich argue that contract campaigns are most

effective if they are well integrated into the structure of the local. This not only means

that the union has the technical know how and capacity to launch a contract campaign

but also that the union has an organizational culture that embraces such strategies.

This organizational culture should extend beyond the leadership of the local and into

its staff and rank-and-file. This is important because in order to be effective, a

contract campaign needs the commitment of all of these elements within a union

(Bronfenbrenner & Juravich, 2001).

As I show below, the strategy employed by the Culinary Union for its 2002

contract campaign met many of the criteria for an ideal contract campaign as defined

by Bronfenbrenner and Juravich’s chapter in Rekindling the Movement. First, the

Culinary Union had developed the capacity and internal culture to launch and to
 36

adequately support a contract campaign. Secondly, the local began to prepare for the

campaign more than a year and a half in advance, so they were prepared for

employers' resistance to its contract demands. Also, the Culinary and Bartenders

unions carefully analyzed the employers involved in the 2002 round of contract

negotiations as well as the bargaining context and choose escalating pressure tactics

that were carefully tailored to their specific bargaining goals and the context of the Las

Vegas gaming industry. Finally, the local prepared a strategy that carefully combined

rank-and-file mobilization and corporate campaign tactics so that one reinforced the

other. (Bronfenbrenner and Juravich 2001).

Strategic Integration

The coordination of union strategies across different spheres of union activity

such as contract bargaining, contract administration, external organizing, and politics

has been one of the key factors behind the Culinary Union’s overall success. For

example, the local achieved most of its external organizing victories of the last 15

years by negotiating card-check neutrality language in its collective bargaining

agreements with most of Las Vegas’s major casino employers. According to the card-

check neutrality language contained in these contracts, employers must recognize the
union at any newly opened or acquired property once fifty plus one percent of the

employees sign union cards. This language not only helped the Culinary Union in its

external organizing functions, it also increased the union’s leverage at the bargaining

table, thereby benefiting the union’s ability to service its own members.

Although much of the union revitalization literature has implicitly

acknowledged the existence of these kinds of linkages between union strategies in one

activity on the industrial relations outcomes in another and has, furthermore,

recognized the benefits of coordinating strategies in different areas of union activity,

few studies have focused on this subject. Rather, much of the initial union
 37

revitalization literature that dealt with strategic integration has focused on the

institutional and budgetary reforms a local needed to make in order to make a

successful transition from a strategy focusing exclusively on representational activities

to one that also places an emphasis on external organizing (Hurd, 2004). This

literature focused on how unions trying to place a greater emphasis on external

organizing should balance this new focus with their representational responsibilities

(Hurd, 2004; Griffin & Moors, 2004).

However, this branch of the union revitalization literature does not cover

strategic coordination of tactics across spheres of union activity beyond this narrow

focus, nor does it analyze how such coordination could positively impact a local’s

ability to mount an effective comprehensive contract campaign. For example, Fletcher

and Hurd (2001) argue that in order for a local to make a successful transformation

from business unionism2 to a model emphasizing external organizing, it must: 1) not

compromise its representational effectiveness as a result of expending more resources

on external organizing, 2) identify organizational barriers to change such as staff

deficiencies and reticence, and 3) “educate and mobilize its members to build the

political will and prepare the local for cultural change and ideological reorientation.”

In other words, Fletcher and Hurd highlight the importance of coordinating external
organizing and contract administration activities when a union is shifting its strategic

focus.

Among the comprehensive/corporate campaign case studies discussed earlier

in this chapter, Matthew O’Malley’s (1999) examination of the IBT’s strike against

UPS provides the most in-depth analysis of how the coordination of strategies across

2
Business unionism can be defined as a model of union behavior whereby a union concentrates on its
representational functions and provides these services based on the logic of economic exchange,
whereby members pay dues in order purchase services from the union. Generally, this model of union
behavior is associated with minimal rank-and-file participation in the union. (Bacharach et al. 2001,
Turner & Hurd, 2001)
 38

spheres of union activity can influence comprehensive contract campaign

effectiveness. O’Malley’s thesis describes how the IBT started educating and

preparing shop stewards more than a year in advance of the campaign. The union

sought to teach stewards how to mobilize and communicate with other union members

about the campaign and the upcoming negotiations. The union also sought to develop

an effective communication network between its union officials, staff and the rank-

and-file; as well as recruit rank-and-file activists for leadership roles in the campaign.

By the time the strike against UPS occurred, roughly a year later, the union was able

to mobilize its membership to effectively put pressure on the company and force it to

settle on terms favorable to the union. O’Malley’s thesis shows how the IBT was able

to coordinate its contract administration functions with its contract bargaining

functions and increase its capacity to mobilize its members for a strike. This

accomplishment seems more remarkable given the fact that many IBT members held

apathetic or even cynical attitudes towards their union as a result of its tradition of

minimal rank-and-file involvement in the bargaining process and chronic corruption.

However, the IBT’s campaign against UPS presents only a limited example of

strategic integration because it involves coordination between only two collective

bargaining functions of a union, contract administration and contract negotiation, and

does not involve other areas of union activity such as organizing and politics.

Furthermore, these kinds of strategic innovations were not maintained within the IBT.

The next round of negotiations between the union and UPS did not feature nearly the

same levels of rank-and-file mobilization nor coordination between the union’s

bargaining and contract administration functions. In comparison, the Culinary Union

has maintained this kind of coordination between its representational functions since

the late 1980s and coordinates its strategies across its collective bargaining,

organizing, and political functions.

 39

A more comprehensive example of a union coordinating its strategies across

different spheres of activity is provided by an article published by Harry Katz,

Rosemary Batt, and Jeffrey Keefe (2003). In their paper, they examine the CWA’s

efforts to revitalize itself as changes in its bargaining environment, such technological

innovation and divestiture, undermine its traditional membership base and bargaining

power. They go on to describe how the CWA’s leadership recognized the mutually

dependent nature of its collective bargaining, external organizing, and political

functions and pursued a revitalization strategy that coordinated the union’s strategies

in these areas. The article demonstrated that where the CWA was able to link its

strategies across the different spheres of union activity, it enjoyed its greatest

successes, and where it was unable to do this its success was more limited.

Although PACE’s campaign against Crown-Petroleum did not involve

extensive coordination of union strategies across spheres of activity, Robert Hickey

(2003), in his case study of this campaign, developed a model of strategic integration

of union activities and linked this coordination with sustained union revitalization. He

criticizes much of the previous union revitalization research for focusing on single

indicators of union revitalization, such as increased union membership or greater

union political power. He argues that increases in union power in one of these areas
are an insufficient indicator of union revitalization. Rather, Hickey argues that in

order to achieve sustained revitalization, unions must take a comprehensive approach

to their strategic planning and integrate their core activities, as well as undergo the

necessary cultural and structural organizational transformations necessary to support

their new strategic focus. He argues that without coordinating their strategies in their

core areas of activity, unions will be unable to institute the cultural and structural

changes necessary to sustain revitalization.

 40

The success of the Culinary Union over the past 15 years provides support for

Hickey’s analysis. In their analysis of the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization

efforts, Rick Fantasia and Kim Voss (2004) argue that the Culinary Union, by

involving rank-and-file members in its external organizing efforts, has helped to

“radicalize” its rank-and-file membership and thereby increase their capacity to be

mobilized for the local’s collective bargaining and political efforts. In a similar way,

this case study shows how the Culinary Union’s contract administration procedure has

also contributed to this effect by exposing rank-and-file members to the kinds of

mobilization tactics that are common in comprehensive contract campaigns and

increasing their awareness of the union as an organization in which they can become

involved in order to resolve workplace problems. This radicalization of the Culinary

Union’s rank-and-file membership has helped transform its internal culture to one that

facilitates the rank-and-file mobilization efforts that form the backbone of the local’s

comprehensive contract campaigns. It has also contributed to the ability of the union

to make the internal structural reforms necessary to support these kinds of campaigns.

Dorothee Benz’s 2004 article provides an in-depth analysis of how the

Culinary Union has been able to successfully coordinate its strategies across its

different core activities in order to win significant collective bargaining, external

organizing, as well as political gains. Benz also analyzes how the Culinary Union’s

strategic choices and accomplishments are linked to the economic, political, and social

contexts of Las Vegas’s casino industry. Her conclusion is that contextual variables in

Las Vegas’s gaming industry created opportunities that the Culinary Union was able

to exploit in order to win remarkable victories in the areas of politics, collective

bargaining, and external organizing. The strategic choices made by the Culinary

Union play an important role in the Benz’s model because by employing the correct

set of choices the local was able to take advantage of available contextual
 41

opportunities. However, Benz argues that these contextual opportunities were unique

to Las Vegas’s casino industry and, therefore, the same set of strategies could not be

employed with the same degree of success in other industrial relations environments.

Therefore Benz, much like Bronfenbrenner and Juravich (2001), emphasizes the

importance of matching suitable union strategies to bargaining contexts, arguing that

unions cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach to their campaigns, whether they are in

the realm of collective bargaining, organizing, or politics, or in some combination of

the three (Benz 2004).

In terms of strategic integration, Benz describes how the Culinary Union has

consistently taken a comprehensive approach to its strategic initiatives. This

comprehensive approach encompasses the collective bargaining, external organizing,

and political spheres of union activity. For example, Benz discusses how the local,

taking into account a variety of contextual factors that gave it significant leverage

against employers in the sphere of collective bargaining, was able to get card-check

neutrality language covering all newly developed and acquired casinos included in its

contracts with all of the major casino operators in Las Vegas. The contextual factors

that gave the union increased leverage in the sphere of collective bargaining included

the vulnerability of the Las Vegas casino industry to strikes, the shortage of qualified

workers at the beginning of the 1990s, the large amounts of debt most of the large

casino operators had compiled, and the sensitivity of the industry to bad publicity.

With this neutrality language in effect, the union was able to organize roughly 30,000

workers with minimal employer resistance.

The union also used political strategies to undermine the efforts of casino

operators that did not agree to neutrality, to move into new gaming jurisdictions. As a

result of the heavily regulated nature of the gaming industry, especially in jurisdictions

outside of Nevada and Atlantic City, the union was able to use its considerable
 42

political influence to prevent certain casinos from obtaining licenses to open new

casinos, thus pressuring these operators to settle with the union. This factor played a

key role in the decision of MGM-Grand to eventually sign a neutrality agreement with

the union. This example also shows how contextual factors are linked to the Culinary

Union’s coordination of strategies across spheres of activity (Benz 2004).

Benz’s analysis is very comprehensive; it takes into account both the

importance of coordinating union strategies across spheres of activity as well as the

significance of selecting strategies that provide a union with the most leverage in a

specific bargaining context. However, Benz, in addition to Hickey (2003) and Katz et

al. (2003), does not take into consideration a union’s representational functions in

between rounds of negotiations. In fact, of the studies discussed in this chapter, only

O’Malley (1999) discusses the importance of coordinating a union’s contract

administration strategies with other union functions.

The fact that Benz did not discuss the Culinary Union’s contract administration

strategy in her analysis is rendered even more striking by the fact that many of the

Culinary Union’s leaders and staff that were interviewed for this case study placed

contract administration at the core of the local’s overall rank-and-file mobilization

efforts (Pappageorge, 2003, Dalton, 2003, Hughes, 2003, Zeitz 2003, Alexander,

2005, Henry 2005, Pappageorge, 2005). Furthermore, because rank-and-file

mobilization is the foundation of the Culinary Union’s political, external organizing,

and contract bargaining strategies, the importance of the local’s contract

administration strategy is especially significant.

This thesis will correct this oversight on the part of Hickey (1993), Katz et al.

(2003) and Benz (2005) by providing comprehensive examination of the Culinary

Union’s contract administration strategy and discussing how it relates to the local’s

organizing, political, and contract bargaining functions. It will also include a case
 43

study of the Culinary Union’s 2002 comprehensive contract campaign and show that

the union’s coordination of strategies across its different spheres of activity greatly

contributed to the effectiveness of this campaign. In particular, this thesis will show

how the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy greatly contributed to its

rank-and-file mobilization efforts, which formed the backbone of its 2002

comprehensive contract campaign.

Contract Administration and the Organizing Model

The center of the Culinary Union’s member mobilization efforts is its contract

administration strategy. Through this strategy the Culinary Union: communicates and

educates its members, identifies, recruits, and trains rank-and-file leaders, promotes

rank-and-file participation in the local, and encourages a sense of solidarity and

empowerment amongst members in the workplace.

Contract administration involves the establishment and implementation of the

rules and regulations that make up a labor contract. Bob Repas (1984) identifies three

primary elements of the concept of contract administration: “1) the introduction of the

contract after its approval by the negotiations parties, 2) contract alteration and

revision during its term….3) the actual operations of the contract, including grievance

handling and pressure tactics.” Repas’s definition of contract administration is

distinguished from other definitions of the concept because it recognizes the use of

alternative methods of resolving grievances and workplace issues other than formal

grievance procedures. The importance of power is also implied in Repas’s definition

of contract administration. Other definitions of contract administration tend to

concentrate on its formal and legalistic characteristics and often overlook the

importance of power and non-legalistic alternative means of resolving workplace

issues to this concept (Lewin & Peterson, 1988, Duane, 1993, Bremmels & Foley,

1996, Clark 2000). These issues are especially relevant to the case of the Culinary
 44

Union because pressure tactics outside of the traditional grievance process, such as

group delegations to management, play a major role in the local’s contract

administration strategy. In fact, the Culinary Union negotiates specific provisions in

its labor contracts, which facilitate the use of these alternative pressure tactics (Caesars

Palace Contract 2002-2007, Mirage Contract, 2002-2007).

The contract administration strategy utilized by the Culinary Union in the years

prior to the 2002 round of contract negotiations is similar to that described by Teresa

Cornrow (1991). In Cornrow’s model the union places a priority on rank-and-file

membership involvement in the contract administration process. Furthermore, the role

of union staff in this model is to facilitate the ability of union members to take

advantage of the tools provided by the contract themselves, rather than to have

members rely on paid union staff to resolve grievances. In order to do this the union

must give rank-and-file leaders increased responsibility and ownership of the

grievance process. Unions must also provide rank-and-file leaders with the education

and training necessary for them to take advantage of their increased responsibility.

Finally, Cornrow argues that a union’s contract administration strategy must help

rank-and-file members develop a sense of solidarity and empowerment in the

workplace by encouraging members to conceptualize their work issues collectively

rather than individually.

In her article, Cornrow outlines several tactical recommendations for unions

adopting the organizing model of contract administration. Her first recommendation

is that unions ought to adopt a strategy that focuses on issues that generate a

community of interest among the members and build member solidarity. In other

words, the union ought to give priority to those grievances which affect groups of

workers and which workers can rally around, rather than those which impact

individual workers. Cornrow also recommends that unions ought to be aware of

 45

informal power structures that exist in the workplace and pursue a strategy that builds

members’ sense of empowerment. In order to do this she recommends that union

pursue group grievances, and involve union members in the grievance process as

much as possible by utilizing such tactics as delegations to management, break room

rallies, solidarity days, and petitions. (Cornrow 1991). These kinds of tactics are a

common part of the Culinary Union’s tactical arsenal.

A strong two-way communications network between union staff, leadership,

and rank-and-file makes up another important element in Cornrow’s organizing model

of contract administration. This network should include regular face-to-face contact

between these different groups and be used to educate the membership about wider

union issues. Furthermore, regular face-to-face communication with the membership

should help union leaders and staff develop an accurate understanding of the informal

power relationships that exist in the workplace and where the union membership is

physically, mentally, and ideologically.

The Culinary Union is one of the few union locals utilizing the organizing

model of contract administration, and its use of this model is much more ambitious

than most other locals pursuing a similar strategy. Although it is common for unions

to mobilize members immediately prior to the beginning of negotiations or elections, it

is rare for a union to do so in between these cycles (Lopez, 2004). Therefore, it is

important to look at the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy and the

kinds of impacts it has for other areas of union activity such as contract bargaining.

Outside of the case studies discussed above, contract administration has been

largely ignored in the union revitalization literature. When it is addressed, contract

administration is often characterized as being in competition with external organizing,

or other areas of union activity that are crucial to revitalization for limited union

resources. Furthermore, most of the industrial relations research on contract

 46

administration that exists outside of the union revitalization literature does not address

the role of union strategies and/or power in the bargaining relationship, and therefore

is of limited relevance to this study. In particular, this prior research does not address

the influence union contract administration strategy can have on contract bargaining or

other areas of union activity. Instead, this literature has focused on issues such as

arbitration; the influence of various demographic, economic, and technological factors

on grievance rates; the influence of management policies and supervisor behavior on

grievance rates, the influence of union policies and union official behavior on

grievance rates; the connection between perceptions of industrial relations conflict

and high incidence of grievance filing; and the influence of grievance procedures on

where and how grievances are resolved (Lewin & Peterson 1988; Bremmels & Foley

1996).

However, there is an extensive amount of organizational behavior literature

which has shown that a union’s contract administration strategy can have a profound

impact on members’ union commitment and participation in the union and therefore

influence a union’s rank-and-file mobilization capabilities. The Culinary Union’s

extraordinary rank-and-file mobilization capacity formed the backbone of its 2002

contract campaign strategy; therefore, this literature linking contract administration

strategy to mobilization provides essential background and support for the arguments

made in this thesis.

Numerous studies have shown that grievance procedures are one of the most

important functions of a union in the eyes of its members. This may be because it is

one of the most visible and regular services a union provides to its members. One

survey of approximately 1500 union members found that, among these workers,

grievance representation was considered the most important of all union activities

(Kochan, 1979). Four other studies have found a strong positive correlation between
 47

rank-and-file union members’ subjective evaluations of the grievance procedure and

union commitment3 (Gallagher & Clark, 1989, Clark, Gallagher, & Pavlak, 1990,

Eaton, Gordon, & Keefe, 1992, Bemmels, 1995a). The connection between union

member attitudes towards the grievance process and union commitment is important

because a strong positive correlation has been found between union commitment and

rank-and-file participation, and thus a union’s capacity to mobilize its membership

(Fullagar & Barling, 1989, Thacker, Fields, & Barclay, 1990, Bamberger, Kluger, &

Suchard, 1999, Sverke & Kuruvilla, 1995, Sverke & Sjoberg, 1995, Redman & Snape,

2004).

Beyond just finding a strong positive correlation between union commitment

and rank-and-file participation, some scholars have found a link between specific

contact administration strategies that are common to the organizing model and

increased levels of commitment and participation. For example, Patricia Fosh (1993)

compared the contract administration strategies and leadership styles of five different

unions in unrelated industries in Great Britain and found that unions could increase

rank-and-file participation by pursuing contract administration strategies that focused

on collective rather than individual concerns of workers and gave members a high

degree of responsibility in resolving grievances. Along similar lines, Ed Snape and

Tom Redman (2004b), in their study of unionized teachers in Great Britain, found that

contract administration strategies that focus on servicing members individually rather

than mobilizing workers to resolve problems collectively have a negative impact on

overall union participation. In another study focusing on unionized firefighters in

3
The definition of union commitment utilized in these four studies has four primary components:
1) A clear awareness of the benefits of belonging to a union for an individual.
2) The degree of willingness to fulfill the day-to-day obligations and duties of a member in
order to protect the interests of the union.
3) The willingness of a member to exert extra effort on behalf of the union above and beyond
the generally expected efforts for union members generally.
4) ideological belief in the general concept of unionism. (Gordon et al 1980)
 48

Great Britain, Snape and Redman (2004a) found that contract administration strategies

that encourage feelings of workplace solidarity and place an emphasis on collective

grievances are positively correlated with higher levels of rank-and-file union

participation.

Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich (1995) have found a strong correlation

between the organizing model of contract administration and a union’s ability to fight

off raids by other unions and decertification attempts. More specifically, they found

that contract administration strategies that are common to the organizing model, such

as building and developing rank-and-file leadership, regularly communicating with

membership, and developing solidarity between members, were positively correlated

with union success in decertification votes and in fending off raiding attempts by rival

unions. This relationship was balanced across most of the demographic variables

tested by Bronfenbrenner and Juravich. Union success in withstanding decertification

votes and raiding attempts provides a reasonable proxy for membership commitment

to the union. Given that a strong positive correlation has been established between

union commitment and union participation, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich’s study

provides additional evidence for a link between the organizing model of contract

administration and increased rank-and-file participation.

Lois Tetrick (1995) provides a theoretical foundation for the correlation

between the organizing model of contract administration and increased rank-and-file

union participation She argues that union commitment is not generated as a result of a

simple economic exchange between the union and its members, whereby union

members make a rational economic choice to become active in their union because of

the financial reward they may receive as a result of their activism. Rather, Tetrick

argues that rank-and-file union participation occurs dynamically as result of the

formation of mutual obligations between rank-and-file union members as well as

 49

union staff and leadership. The organizing model, Tetrick points out, highlights the

mutual obligations union members owe to one another by involving them in the

resolution of their collective problems.

Samuel Bacharach, Peter Bamberger, and William Sonnestuhl (2001) flesh out

Tetrick’s theoretical model. They argue that the more intensely an individual

participates within an organization, building life experiences and relationships

associated with it, the greater the sense of social obligation a person will feel towards

that organization. This sense of social obligation leads to the formation of normative

commitment towards the organization. This type of commitment is what is generally

associated with increased organizational participation, an example of which is

increased rank-and-file union participation. However, in order to generate more

intensive rank-and-file involvement, a union must legitimize itself in the eyes of its

members. Bacharach et al. argue that unions can use logics of action to legitimize

their authority and elicit commitment from their members. The authors define logics

of action as “an interdependent set of representations or constraints that influence

action in a given domain.” In other words, logics of action guide the behavior of

individuals and groups as they tackle the practical constraints of their lives.

Bacharach et al. argue that in regard to rank-and-file union participation, logics of

action form the cognitive frame that guides union-member relations. The authors

define labor’s “logic of union-member relations as the cognitive framework guiding

union strategies for legitimizing the union to its members, securing commitment from

its members, and attracting new members.” Bacharach et al. argue that there are two

logics of union member relations: the servicing logic and the mutual aid logic. The

servicing-logic is organized around a utilitarian principle of legitimacy whereby the

union provides members with services and benefits in exchange for a fee in the form

of union dues. Therefore, according to the servicing logic, members assume a more
 50

passive role in their union. Within this context, members do not expect the union to

play a large role in their lives; they feel that their obligations to the union are met by

paying dues, attending occasional meetings, and voting on the contract. Union

members do not form the kinds of relationships or have the kinds of experiences that

lead to them developing a sense of obligation towards the organization, and therefore

the union is unable to generate high levels of rank-and-file participation (Bacharach et

al., 2001).

The second type of logic of action described in the same analysis is the mutual

aid logic. According to the mutual-aid logic, the union is seen as an entity whose

members, staff, and leadership have multiple mutual obligations to one another.

Members are given more responsibility in union matters and are encouraged to address

issues both in and outside of the workplace collectively. In fact, the union is seen as

an organization that can help members resolve problems both in and out of the

workplace. This logic generates rank-and-file participation in the union because it

facilitates rank-and-file participation in and a sense of responsibility for the union.

Furthermore, it encourages union members to look at their problems collectively and

seek to resolve them with aid of their peers, instead of relying on paid union staff.

Problems are seen as issues around which prospective or current members are

organized, and workers learn the essence of unionism by participating in and

experiencing collective action. Instead of providing services to the members, the role

of paid union staff and leadership is to facilitate the ability of members to help

themselves by empowering and organizing them so that they are able to resolve their

problems collectively. Therefore, the mutual-aid logic increases the capacity of

unions to mobilize their rank-and-file members. Bacharach et al. argue that the

organizing model, such as that which the Culinary Union employs for its contract

administration as well as other activities, is consistent with the mutual aid logic.
 51

Therefore, as this case study of the Culinary Union shows, unions pursuing an

organizing model of contract administration should enjoy increased rank-and-file

participation and greater capacity to mobilize members for periodic rounds of

negotiation.
Chapter III: Methodology

Case studies are an integral part of the union revitalization literature,

particularly the branch of the literature dealing with comprehensive contract

campaigns. This is because one the key arguments made by scholars studying union

comprehensive contract campaigns is that in order for such campaigns to be successful

unions ought to utilize strategies that are matched to their contextual circumstances

(Juravich & Bronfenbrenner, 2000). Therefore, studies examining comprehensive

campaigns need to take into account the context in which each campaign takes place.

Because it facilitates a detailed description of the social, political, and economic

context of the subject under analysis, the case study approach is well suited for

researching comprehensive contract campaigns.

Case studies are also particularly appropriate for describing the processes

through which an outcome occurs. This is because of the rich detail a case study

provides. This thesis focuses on how the Culinary Union’s strategies, both prior to

and during its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign, influenced by the external

industrial relations context of Las Vegas’s gaming industry, increased the Culinary

Union’s collective bargaining power in its 2002 round of negotiations. Therefore, a

case study approach is well suited to this study.

However, case studies have their own particular drawbacks. Most importantly,

due to their singular nature, it is difficult to draw definitive generalizable conclusions

from case studies. Nevertheless, this case study does provide further evidence

supporting the argument that contract administration strategy and strategic integration

have significant roles to play in the union revitalization process. This thesis also

provides an illustration of how the organizing model can be used to increase rank-and-

file union participation and increase the effectiveness of comprehensive campaign

strategies. Yet it is important to be cognizant of how contextual factors can influence

52
 53

both the strategic choices of the Culinary Union and industrial relations outcomes in

Las Vegas’s casino industry.

This case study relied on a wide variety of sources of information. Thirty

hours of interviews were conducted with union staff and leaders for this case study.

Gaming wire reporters, who provided the primary coverage of the negotiations for

both the local and national press, were also interviewed. I worked as an intern in the

Culinary Union’s research department in the summer following the 2002 round of

negotiations, which provided me with both observational and experiential data. This

internship provided me with a large degree of insight into the internal functioning of

the Culinary Union. It also allowed me to have numerous informal conversations with

Culinary Union staff and leaders about the 2002 contract campaign, as well as other

activities of the union.

I also shadowed several internal organizers as they went about their daily work

routine. This entailed following them into the casino and observing them meeting

with workers and managers in order to resolve grievances. This allowed me to witness

the Culinary Union’s contract administration procedure in practice.

Other valuable sources of information for this thesis were the people I shared

an apartment with while living in Las Vegas. Both were casino workers; one was a

shop steward for the Culinary Union and the other was a non-union subcontracted

worker at a unionized casino. Numerous informal conversations with these

individuals provided me with a great deal of insight into the everyday internal

operations of a Las Vegas casino.

The union also granted me access to some primary materials related to the

campaign, such as weekly updates distributed to members, training materials used to

prepare the bargaining committee for the campaign, numerous flyers and other

publicity related materials, etc. However, I was not given access to the Culinary
 54

Union’s bargaining notes. Finally, I made considerable use of secondary materials for

this case study. I relied extensively on press accounts from Las Vegas’s two primary

newspapers: the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun. I also analyzed a

variety of academic literature on union revitalization, the organizing model, union

participation, and contract bargaining, and Las Vegas’s gaming industry. This

academic literature provided this thesis with its theoretical underpinnings and allowed

for it to be placed within the context of the existing industrial relations research.
Chapter IV: Las Vegas Background

Introduction

A key argument made in this thesis is that unions and employers can

strategically manipulate advantages and disadvantages accruing from their bargaining

environment in order to increase their power at the bargaining table. This case study

provides a detailed explanation of how the Culinary Union did this in the 2002

negotiations. The bargaining environment the Culinary Union faced in the

negotiations can be divided into two parts, the first being the social, political, and

economic context of Las Vegas’s casino industry. The second is the Culinary Union’s

own internal history, culture, structure, resources, and long-term practices which

played an integral role in influencing its decision making and capabilities during the

negotiations. This chapter as well as the following chapter will describe the context of

the 2002 contract negotiations. This chapter will focus on Las Vegas and its casino

industry. The next chapter will focus on the history of the Culinary Union. The

second chapter will also analyze the Culinary Union’s current structure, culture, and

long-term practices and discuss their influence on the local’s choices and capabilities

in the 2002 negotiations.

The City of Las Vegas

The City of Las Vegas itself covers only a relatively small proportion of the

area that is popularly conceived of as "Las Vegas." The Las Vegas Strip, UNLV, the

airport, and a large proportion of the residential and commercial development all fall

outside the City of Las Vegas's boundaries and lie in unincorporated parts of Clark

County. State legislation passed after World War II prevented Nevada cities from

annexing unincorporated townships without the county’s approval. This has meant

that Las Vegas has never been able capture the strip or any of its rapidly growing

55
 56

suburbs and has only been able to retain its declining core areas. Therefore, when

studying Las Vegas it is important to look not at the City of Las Vegas itself but at its

wider metropolitan area or the county the city resides in: Clark County. This is

highlighted by comparing the population figures of Las Vegas with that of its entire

metropolitan area. In 2000 the population of Las Vegas was 483,734, while the

population of the Las Vegas metropolitan statistical area was 1,381,086. (U.S. Census

Bureau). The chief public body governing these unincorporated areas is the Clark

County Commission, which some have argued is the most powerful governmental

body in the state. However, it should also be noted that Clark County also covers an

area significantly larger than the Las Vegas Metropolitan area, much of which is

unpopulated desert (Littlejohn, 1999).

The political economy of Las Vegas and Nevada is very laissez-faire. Nevada

has no franchise tax, personal or corporate income tax, or inheritance gift taxes, and

has minimal property taxes. It has been a right-to-work state since 1952 and otherwise

has generally lax labor protections. The political and social climate in Nevada is very

libertarian and therefore tends to favor as little government involvement in economic

and social issues as possible (Rothman, 2002a). Traditionally, the City of Las Vegas’s

political leaders have been very supportive of the local gaming industry; however,

they have also been somewhat more progressive on employment issues than their

colleagues at the county and state levels (Arnado, 2003).

The Las Vegas Casino Industry

Las Vegas’s economy is dominated by the Hotel Gaming and Recreation

(HGR) Industry. In 2002 the HGR industry employed 174,226 people in the Las

Vegas metropolitan area and accounted for 26.4 percent of all jobs in the area. If jobs

that support the HGR industry were counted in this statistic, such as taxi drivers and

airport workers, this proportion would be much higher (Wial & Rickert, 2002). Over
 57

the past 20 years the area’s economic base has become more diverse as employers

have located to Las Vegas to take advantage of its business friendly climate. In this

period CitiCorp, Ocean Spray, and the US Postal Service have also become major

employers in Las Vegas. Due to the expansion of its airport and its strategic

geographic location, Las Vegas has become a major mail distribution center for the

southwestern United States.

This increasing economic diversity has diluted the traditionally dominant

influence of the gaming industry over state and local government (Rothman, 2002a).

Furthermore, the Culinary Union in the 1990s became more aggressive in asserting

itself in state and local politics, which has also weakened gaming operators’ hold over

local politics. In the years between 1990 and 2002 the union successfully elected two

of its members to the state legislature and played a leading role in the defeat of several

state and local politicians that had sided explicitly with management in a variety of

labor disputes that occurred during this period (Arnado, 2003).

The Las Vegas Casino industry is generally subdivided into three categories.

The first are casinos located along or near to the Las Vegas Strip. The second

category are casinos that are located along or near to the Fremont Street Experience, a

covered pedestrian walkway in downtown Las Vegas. These casinos are known as

downtown casinos. The third category are neighborhood casinos. Neighborhood

casinos are located in neither of the two previously mentioned areas, but are rather

scattered throughout the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Neighborhood casinos are a

relatively new phenomenon in Las Vegas: prior to the 1990s the location of casinos

outside of the strip, downtown, and a few other areas was restricted (Rothman, 2002a)

Strip Casinos are located on or just off Las Vegas Blvd. in the corridor

between the McCarran International Airport at the southern end of the Strip and the

intersection of Las Vegas Blvd and Sahara Ave at the northern end of the Strip. Strip
 58

Casinos are generally the large gaming mega-resorts, such as the Bellagio or Caesar’s

Palace, for which Las Vegas is now known. These casinos primarily serve out-of-

towners (Rothman, 2003). In 2002 there were four casino companies which operated

multiple properties along the strip: MGM-Mirage, The Mandalay Resort Group,

Harrah’s Entertainment, and the Park Place Entertainment Corp.

The strip has been booming since the Mirage Hotel and Casino was built in

1989, with only a brief interruption caused by 9/11 and the recent recession. In the

period between 1990 and 2002 there have been 16 new casinos built either on or just

off the strip (Rothman, 2002a). The names of these recently built casinos are: The

Mirage, the Excalibur, the Luxor, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, the Hard Rock Hotel,

the Stratosphere, Monte Carlo, New York, New York, the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay,

the Venetian, Paris, the Aladdin, the Rio, and The Palms. Other casinos such as

Caesar’s Palace and the Tropicana have undergone major renovations during this

period enabling them to compete with the newer and more elegant recently opened

properties (Alexander, 2002). Casinos which have not undergone such major

renovations, such as the Stardust and the New Frontier, have been forced to compete

by focusing on more budget-minded tourists (Rothman, 2002a).

The vast majority of the Culinary Union’s members work in casinos along the

Strip. Roughly 41,000 of the Culinary Union’s 45,000 plus members4 work in Strip

casinos (Simpson, 2002f, German, 2002l, Berns, 2002m). Union density along the

Strip in occupations typically represented by the Culinary Union is more than 90%

(Greenhouse, 2004). At the time of the 2002 negotiations, the Culinary Union

represented workers at 25 properties along the strip: Bally’s, Barbary Coast, the

Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace, Circus Circus, the Excalibur, the Flamingo, Harrah’s, the

Las Vegas Hilton, the Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, the Mirage, the Monte

4
This number reflects the Culinary Union’s membership at the time of negotiations; in the years
following the negotiations the local’s membership has grown dramatically.
 59

Carlo, the New Frontier, New York, New York, Paris, Rio, Riviera, Sahara, Slots-a-

Fun, the Stardust, the Stratosphere, Treasure Island, and the Tropicana.

The second category of casinos are downtown casinos. These casinos are

patronized by a mix of locals and budget-minded tourists. In contrast to the thriving

Strip casinos, downtown casinos with a few exceptions5 have struggled to remain

competitive in Las Vegas’s dynamic gaming industry. The vast majority of downtown

casinos are unionized. However, due to their comparatively small size, downtown

casinos employ only about 4,000 Culinary Union members in total (Simpson, 2002m).

The downtown properties with contracts with the Culinary Union are Binion’s

Horseshoe, El Cortez, Fitzgerald’s, the Four Queens, the Fremont, the Golden Gate,

the Golden Nugget, the Las Vegas Club, the Plaza, and the Western.

Traditionally, downtown casinos have drawn from two major market niches:

budget-minded tourists and locals. However, over the past twenty to thirty years these

two markets have been siphoned off by Strip and neighborhood casinos and, as a

result, most downtown casinos have been going through a long steady decline

(Simpson, 2002a). In addition, downtown casinos have lost customers as a result of

the emergence of gaming in other parts of the United States. Several additional factors

have contributed to the decline of downtown casinos: first, the overall economic

decline of downtown Las Vegas has decreased the attractiveness of downtown casinos

for gamblers. Downtown Las Vegas suffers from many of the common problems that

downtowns across America face: a lack of parking, increased crime, a population shift

to the suburbs, and a declining tax base. Furthermore, downtown casinos are older,

smaller, and offer fewer amenities than either Strip casinos or the newer neighborhood

casinos. These factors have been compounded by the failure of most downtown

casino operators to significantly invest in their establishments (Simpson, 2002a).

5
Such exceptions include the Golden Nugget and those owned by Boyd Gaming.
 60

The third sector of Las Vegas’s gaming industry are neighborhood casinos.

These casinos primarily serve local gamblers and are located throughout the Las

Vegas metropolitan area. Although this sector of the Las Vegas casino industry is

thriving as a whole, older neighborhood casinos have struggled in recent years,

causing several to shut down. The failure of these older properties can be explained to

a significant degree by the proliferation of two casino chains that have come to

dominate the neighborhood casino sector in Las Vegas: Stations Casinos and Coast

Casinos. The new casino chains have redefined the neighborhood gaming market in

Las Vegas. The older neighborhood casinos generally offer minimal non-gaming

amenities beyond food service. However, the newer Stations and Coast casinos offer

an expanded the list of amenities by including such things as movie theaters, live

entertainment, nightclubs, bowling, etc. Furthermore, the newer neighborhood casino

chains are much better located geographically than their older counterparts. The older

neighborhood gaming properties tend to be located in declining areas such as North

Las Vegas, while the newer neighborhood casino properties are located near Las

Vegas’s newer and more middle class areas, making them more convenient for local

gamblers with more spending money. Overall, union density amongst neighborhood

casinos is very low. The Culinary Union only represents employees at three of these

properties: Castaways, El Dorado, and the Jerry Nugget. Furthermore, all of the

Stations and Coast neighborhood casinos are non-union6 (Rothman, 2002, Rothman,
2003).

Las Vegas Gaming Industry Workforce

There is a high degree of occupational segregation by gender, race, and

ethnicity in the gaming industry nationwide. For the most part this pattern of

segregation type is present in Las Vegas’s casinos as well. African-Americans are

6
Coast Casinos owns one union property located on the Strip: the Barbary Coast
 61

over-represented in out-of-sight “back-of-the-house” jobs such as maids and

housemen, janitors and cleaners. In comparison, African-Americans are under-

represented in front-of-the-house jobs such as front desk clerks, bartenders, and food

servers in which there is a higher degree of interaction with casino guests. These same

patterns exist for Hispanics as well. (Waddoups & Eade, 2002).

There is also a high degree of occupational segregation by gender in the

hospitality industry. Sales counter clerks, maids, and waitstaff are disproportionably

female, while women are under-represented in security guard and bartender positions.

One of the effects of the occupational segregation in the gaming industry is that

women as well as racial and ethnic minorities earn less than their male and Caucasian

counterparts, in occupations of equivalent skill level. However, these wage disparities

are mitigated in casinos covered by collective bargaining agreements (Waddoups &

Eade, 2002). Undocumented workers do not have much of a presence in Las Vegas

due to various state, county, and city licensing requirements for casino workers,

although some of these regulations have recently become repealed (Pappageorge,

2003).

Patterns of Collective Bargaining in Las Vegas’s Casino Industry

Union density in Las Vegas’s casino industry stands at roughly 65%.

However, union density in Clark County's hotel, gaming, and recreation industry is

highly variable by occupation. For example, occupations that are generally

represented by the Culinary Union, such as housekeepers and cocktail waitresses, have

a very high union density, while others such as card dealers and most other

occupations directly related to gambling activities are almost entirely unorganized7

(Waddoups & Eade, 2002, Benz, 2004, Fantasia & Voss, 2004).

7
The only establishment in which these employees are unionized is the New Frontier Hotel and Casino.
 62

Several labor unions in addition to the Culinary Workers' and Bartenders

unions represent workers in Las Vegas casinos. However, the Culinary Workers'

Union is the dominant local union representing workers in Las Vegas’s casinos.

Occupations typically covered by the Culinary Workers' Union are: food preparation,

kitchen sanitation, dining room staff, bell desk, housekeeping, slot change, cocktail

servers, and valet parkers in some casino/hotels. The vast majority of these job

categories are unskilled or semi-skilled (Occupational Information Network 2005).

Other unions with a presence in Las Vegas casinos include the Carpenters,

IBT, IUOE, IATSE, AFM, UNITE!8, and the TWU9. For the most part, these unions

have not been as successful as the HERE-affiliated locals in organizing newly opened

Las Vegas casinos, resulting in much lower union densities in the occupations that

they tend to represent. UNITE! has been the one exception in this regard. Before

UNITE!’s merger with HERE in 2003, it had successfully organized the laundry

workers in a number of casinos as well as several of the major subcontractors who

clean casino laundry (Waddoups & Eade, 2002, Bohner, 2004, Berns, 2002s)

There were no reported instances either in the press or in any of my interviews

of any of the above labor unions engaging in any solidarity actions on behalf of the

Culinary or the Bartenders Unions in the 2002 negotiations. Historically, there have
been several instances where unions in Las Vegas’s gaming industry have cooperated

in contract negotiations, perhaps most significantly in the period between 1968 and

1980 when the Teamsters, Bartenders, and Culinary Unions all agreed to honor each

others’ picket lines. This agreement was broken by the Culinary Union when they

agreed to a no-strike clause in their 1980 contract (Waddoups & Eade, 2002,

Rothman, 2002a).

8
Most of UNITE!’s members work in subcontracted cleaning services jobs.
9
TWU only represents the dealers in the New Frontier Hotel
 63

History of the Casino Industry in Las Vegas

Early History

The area where Las Vegas currently stands was once the site of a spring-fed

creek which created an oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was the only free

flowing water and grass for miles around. Prior to the original development of Las

Vegas, the springs had been the site of a variety of Native American villages as well as

a failed Mormon settlement prior to when Las Vegas got its official start. This spring-

fed creek, long ago buried by construction, is ultimately responsible for the city’s

development. Railroad developers, who wanted to take advantage of the only

available source of water for miles around, determined that the Las Vegas Valley

would be a prime spot for a water station and repair facility for a line connecting Los

Angeles to points east. When construction on the line began in 1904, a tent town

comprised of salons, stores, and boarding houses sprung up in the Las Vegas Valley.

By 1905, a permanent downtown had been constructed. The population of Las Vegas

expanded rapidly over the next 15 years to more than 3,000 residents. Las Vegas’s

origins as a railroad town were also responsible for its original association with vice.

Businesses that catered to travelers’ demands for gambling, prostitution, and alcohol

flourished in early Las Vegas (Land & Land, 2004).

As a result of the efforts of progressive reformers and Prohibition, gambling

became illegal in the Nevada in 1910, and drinking became illegal in 1919. However,

these activities still flourished in Las Vegas’s underground economy, as they did in

many other cities and towns across America. In fact, Prohibition failed to curb

gambling and drinking activity in Las Vegas to any extent at all. Most casinos and

salons were at best poorly kept secrets and were regularly attended by local business

and political leaders (Land & Land, 2004).

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The national railway strike of 1922 nearly lead to the end of the fledgling

community. The city was a hotbed of union activism during the strike. In retaliation,

Las Vegas’s primary railroad operator at the time, the Union Pacific, moved most of

its operations to the town of Caliente, about 125 miles to the east. As a result of the

Union Pacific moving its operations, the number of jobs in Las Vegas dwindled and

the city’s residents began to move away (Land & Land, 2004).

Las Vegas was saved by the construction of the Boulder Dam, now known as

the Hoover Dam, about 30 miles from the city. Construction on the dam began in

1931, the same year that gambling became legal again in Nevada, and only two years

before the end of Prohibition. The coincidence of these events was especially

fortuitous as entrepreneurs in the city began to build gambling halls catering to the

estimated 5,000 workers who had migrated to southern Nevada in order to find

employment on the dam project. Although most of the workers did not live in Las

Vegas, they traveled to the city to take advantage of the town’s bustling salons and

gambling establishments. They also traveled to Las Vegas because Boulder City, a

city closer to the dam project where most of the workers lived, had strictly enforced

laws against gambling and alcohol consumption. By becoming the entertainment

center for these workers, Las Vegas was once again able to thrive. The effect of the

Hoover Dam project on Las Vegas was so significant that the city continued to thrive

even in the midst of the Great Depression (Land & Land, 2004).

However, once the Hoover Dam project was completed and the workers

moved away, Las Vegas again faced decline. The city tried to sustain itself by

advertising itself as the prime place to stay for tourists visiting the Hoover Dam and

most of Las Vegas’s hotels offered gambling as an additional amenity for tourists

visiting the dam. During World War II the military spent nearly $25 million on

military installations around the city, further contributing to the city’s economic
 65

livelihood. The military continued to make large investments in the area throughout

the cold war, becoming one of the city’s primary economic pillars, adding some

diversity to the local economy (Land & Land, 2004).

Las Vegas’s Golden Era

Development along what is now known as the Las Vegas Strip began in the

late 1930s and early 1940s. Development began, because of a shortage of space in Las

Vegas’s downtown commercial area. Developers also preferred to build along what is

now known as “the Strip” because it was located at the end of highway 9110, the

principal thoroughfare between Las Vegas and Southern California. Therefore,

visitors from southern California traveling to Las Vegas by car would come to hotels

along the Strip first, giving these hotels a competitive advantage. Development along

the Strip began in the late 1930s; however, the initial hotel-casinos were similar to Las

Vegas’s downtown gambling halls, not the casino-resorts which later made the Las

Vegas Strip famous. The first resort-style casino in Las Vegas was the El Rancho,

which opened in 1941. The El Rancho was developed by Thomas Hull, who wanted

his new Las Vegas casino to be similar to high-end hotels he owned in Fresno and

elsewhere in California. The El Rancho’s lush palm tree-shaded pool area and low

bungalows differentiated it from the city’s typical gambling halls, which often still had

sawdust floors. The El Rancho was very successful, and it was followed a year later

by the even fancier Last Frontier Hotel and Casino, which still stands today11 (Land &
Land, 2004).

The Flamingo Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1945, was the first truly

extravagant casino-resort in Las Vegas. The original visionary behind the project was

Billy Wilkerson, the founder of the Hollywood Reporter as well as the owner of three

10
Highway 91 was later named Las Vegas Blvd.
11
The current name for this casino is the New Frontier.
 66

Sunset Strip night clubs. Wilkerson lacked sufficient financing to complete the hotel,

and at that time most legitimate lenders and investors were unwilling to get involved

in casino ventures. Therefore, with these avenues of financing unavailable, Wilkerson

reached out to contacts he had made in the organized crime world through his

nightclub business. Through his relationships with various mob figures, Wilkerson

was able to win the backing of the infamously violent mobster Benjamin “Bugsy”

Siegel. At the time, Siegel as well as many other mob figures already owned shares in

Las Vegas gambling halls, so it was not hard for Siegel to convince some of his mafia

colleagues to invest in Wilkerson’s hotel (Denton, 2001).

Siegel quickly took control of the development of the Flamingo, pushing

Wilkerson to the sidelines. Unfortunately, he did not have much experience as a

developer, and the project was plagued by delays and cost overruns. The Flamingo’s

opening was a flop, and the casino initially failed to turn a profit. Furthermore,

rumors began to emerge about propertied financial improprieties related to the project.

As result of these rumors and the Flamingo’s failure, Siegel’s relationship with his

business partners soured. Not long after the opening of the Flamingo, he was found

dead in his house, a probable victim of a mob hit, although his case was never solved

(Denton, 2001).

Ironically, after Siegel’s death the Flamingo rapidly became the most

successful casino in Las Vegas up to that point, and inspired the type of casino resorts

that have made Las Vegas famous. When the Flamingo’s tremendous success became

apparent, it sparked a mafia-financed building boom along the Strip that continued

unabated for the next 20 years. Casinos built during this time include The

Thunderbird, The Desert Inn, The Sahara, The Sands, The Riviera, The Dunes, The

Moulin Rouge, The Hacienda, The Tropicana, and The Stardust (Land & Land, 2004).

Over this same period, the population of the greater Las Vegas Metropolitan area
 67

mushroomed from 8,000 in 1940 to 269,000 in 1967. The rise of Las Vegas as a

gambling mecca was aided considerably by the rise of Castro in Cuba. Prior to Castro,

Cuba had been the leading gambling destination in the Western Hemisphere.

However, when Castro came to power in Cuba, Americans could no longer travel

there to gamble and began to visit Las Vegas instead (Rothman, 2002a).

The Flamingo also provided the model for the predominant method of casino

financing in Las Vegas for the next 20 years. Mob figures who wanted to enter the

Las Vegas gaming market would team up with less sordid local Las Vegans in order to

develop and/or own a casino. The mobsters brought financing into the relationship

while the locals provided legitimacy. The locals were the visible partners in the

relationship and were the licensed operators, while the mob figures were unnamed

partners and were not licensed (Rothman, 2002a, Land & Land, 2004).

A number of factors contributed to the mob’s dominance in the Las Vegas

gaming market. First, the mafia had already gained a foothold in the gaming industry,

because it ran illegal casinos in other parts of the United States, before casino-style

gambling became legal again in Las Vegas (Land & Land, 2004). Secondly, despite

the fact that gaming was legal in Nevada, mainstream financial institutions would not

invest in casino ventures because of the stigma attached to the industry; as a result

casino developers had few choices other than the mob as a source of financing.

Furthermore, other than military spending there was no source of revenue for southern

Nevada at the time, so Las Vegas’s residents and political leaders were willing to look

the other way when the mob began to invest in Las Vegas casinos. This situation was

compounded by the fact that Nevada had retained much of its permissive cultural and

legal climate left over from its frontier days. Finally, gaming regulations designed to

clean up the industry were either ineffective or had effects opposite to their stated

intent (Rothman, 2002a).

 68

As a prime example, after 1955 state regulations required that every

stockholder of a gaming establishment be licensed by the state. Although this was

designed to prevent unnamed mobbed up investors from becoming involved in the Las

Vegas gaming industry, it effectively prevented any large publicly held corporation

from investing in the gaming market, because of the vast numbers of shareholders in

these corporations. The effect of this law became more pronounced as gambling’s

stigma began to wear off in the 1960s, and thus legitimate investors became more

willing to invest in casino ventures. Therefore, casino developers were forced to rely

on the mob as a primary source of financing (Rothman, 2002a).

By the late 1950s developers began to design more lavish casinos with

development costs that exceeded the financial means of the mob. Since legitimate

investors were blocked by either social mores or state gaming regulations, developers

had to find alternative sources of revenue to finance their more lavish casino projects.

The mobbed up casino operators began to rely on the Teamsters Pension Fund as an

additional source of revenue for their projects (Rothman, 2002a). Mobbed up casino

operator Moe Dalitz, who was a longtime friend and associate of Teamsters leader

Jimmy Hoffa, is generally credited with the idea of using Teamster pension fund

money to finance casino development. Dalitz and Hoffa had become friends decades

earlier, when Dalitz owned a number of laundry businesses in the Detroit area whose

drivers were represented by the Teamsters Union. The use of Teamsters Pension fund

money led to newer and more lavish casino resorts along the strip such as Caesar’s

Palace, which cost $16 million to build. By 1966 the Teamsters Pension Fund was the

largest source of revenue for casino developers in Las Vegas (Denton, 2001, Rothman,

2002a).
 69

Corporatization of Las Vegas

As the 1960s progressed, more mainstream financial institutions began to take

an interest in Las Vegas’s gaming industry. This lead to what is commonly known as

the corporatization of Las Vegas, as hospitality corporations and mainstream financial

institutions replaced the mob and the Teamsters as the primary players in Las Vegas’s

casino industry. Five factors contributed to the decline of the mob and the rise of

corporate power in Las Vegas’s Gaming Industry. The first was the arrival of Howard

Hughes in Las Vegas. Hughes became the first truly legitimate major investor to enter

Las Vegas’s gaming market when he bought the Desert Inn in 1966. He soon

followed this first purchase with a buying spree that included Castaways, the Frontier,

the Landmark, the Sands and the Silver Slipper. At one point Hughes controlled one-

seventh of Nevada’s gaming revenue. The expansion of Hughes’s gaming empire was

only halted by an anti-trust lawsuit. Hughes’s company was able to get around

Nevada’s gaming regulations concerning shareholders because Hughes was the sole

owner of his company. Furthermore, a man of Hughes’s stature had little trouble

manipulating the state’s minimal bureaucracy in his favor. Finally, unlike most

previous Las Vegas casino investors, Hughes had no public association with organized

crime (Denton, 2001, Rothman, 2002a, Land & Land, 2004).

Hughes undermined mob control of Las Vegas in a number of ways. First,

Hughes’s public stature helped to reduce the already declining stigma attached to Las

Vegas’s casino industry and the gaming industry in general. Furthermore, his

financial resources greatly exceeded those of the mob or the Teamsters pension fund.

This allowed Hughes to create lavish gaming attractions with which the mafia or

Teamsters financed casinos simply could not compete (Rothman, 2002a, Land &

Land, 2004).
 70

By the time Hughes took an interest in Las Vegas, the casino industry was

already gaining acceptance in popular American culture. By the 1960s Las Vegas

became the subject of several major movies and TV shows. The public began to

associate Las Vegas with popular entertainers like the Rat Pack and fictional

characters such as James Bond, rather than unscrupulous mob personalities such as

Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. Hughes helped this process along, and soon other

major legitimate interests began to invest heavily in Las Vegas (Denton, 2001,

Rothman, 2002a, Land & Land, 2004).

The Hilton Corporation entered the Las Vegas Casino Industry in 1970 with

the purchases of the Flamingo and International casinos. Hilton enjoyed enormous

success in Las Vegas, and by 1976, 43% of its total gross revenue was coming from its

Las Vegas operations. Seeing Hilton’s success, the Holiday Inn and Ramada soon

also entered Las Vegas’s casino industry. This influx of corporate investment was

facilitated by the elimination of the state requirement that every shareholder in a

gaming venture pass a Gaming Control Board background check. This meant that

corporate investors were able to enter the local gaming industry, flooding it with

unprecedented amounts of money. The financial resources of mainstream investors

were much larger than those of the mob, making it hard for the mafia-controlled

casinos to compete with their more lavish corporate-owned counterparts. The mob

was largely overwhelmed by the wealth of the corporate investors that were entering

the Las Vegas casino industry and lacked the resources to compete. By 1980

Nevada’s top five gaming entities, Harrah’s, Del Webb, MGM, Hilton, and Caesar’s

World, were all publicly traded corporations (Denton, 2001, Rothman, 2002a, Land &

Land, 2004).

With legitimate sources of funding now available for casino development,

Nevada gaming regulators became less likely to look the other way when mob figures
 71

sought to operate in the city. For example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board began

to crack down on the mafia’s practice of using legitimate front men to mask their

involvement in various casino interests. By 1985 mob control of Las Vegas’s casino

industry was largely a thing of the past. The population of Las Vegas continued to

grow dramatically throughout 1960s and 1970s. By 1980 the population of Clark

County was 463,087, nearly twice as much as it had been 13 years earlier in 1967.

(Smith, 1995, Rothman, 2002a).

Las Vegas Gaming Industry in Decline

The casino industry in Las Vegas began to stagnate in the 1980s. Revenues in

the industry actually declined for most of the first half of the decade. There were a

number of reasons for this decline. First was the recession that hit the United States in

the early 1980s, which dramatically cut into discretionary income. Secondly, many of

the new casinos that opened in the late 1970s and 1980s failed to capture the public

imagination in the way earlier casino openings had. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and

into the 1970s each new casino became the hottest and trendiest gaming property in

town—that is, until the next casino along the Strip had its grand opening. The new

casinos that opened along the strip in the late 1970s and early 1980s failed to continue

this pattern and generally opened to lackluster reviews. Right from their opening

these newer casinos were overshadowed by their predecessors like Caesar’s Palace.

The legalization of casino-style gambling in Atlantic City also contributed to

the failure of newer Las Vegas casinos to capture the popular imagination. Atlantic

City was more convenient for gamblers from east coast population centers, and its

casino openings stole the spotlight from those in Las Vegas. In many ways Atlantic

City began to be seen as the trendy place to gamble, and Las Vegas was considered to

be old and passé. A major fire at the MGM casino in 1980 that killed 85 people and

injured hundreds, as well as a 60-day city-wide casino strike in 1984, with images of
 72

thousands of striking workers getting tear gassed and arrested along the Strip

broadcast all over the country, only served to further sully Las Vegas’s image with the

public (Hopkins, 2004b).

Mirage Phase Las Vegas

After this period of stagnation in the 1980s, a casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn

breathed new life into Las Vegas’s casino industry. Starting in 1989, Steve Wynn,

followed by other casino operators, began to build new massive gaming resorts along

the Strip. These new casinos exceeded all previous establishments in terms of size,

extravagance, and amenities offered to the guests. This era, which began in 1989 with

the opening of the Mirage Hotel and Casino and continued through 2000, is known as

the Mirage phase (Rothman, 2002a). The Mirage casino is a prime example of the

kinds of attractions these new casinos offered in addition to gaming activities and

traditional Las Vegas shows. The Mirage featured a large volcano that exploded

hourly, Siegfried and Roy and their famed white tigers, a large dolphin tank, and the

renowned nouvelle circus, Cirque du Soliel (Hopkins, 2004b). Not only did Steve

Wynn create innovative casino attractions, he also was a pioneer in casino financing.

Realizing that it would be difficult to finance his highly expensive projects through

traditional means,12 Wynn turned to high-yield junk bonds. As a result, in the late 80s

and 1990s Drexel Burnham Lambert became the dominant financial force in the

industry (Rothman, 2004a).

Soon after work began on the Mirage, other major casino operators in Las

Vegas, in order to remain competitive, launched plans to develop Mirage-style casinos

of their own and/or substantially renovate their existing properties. These new casinos

included Treasure Island, Excalibur, The Venetian, Paris, New York - New York, The

12
The Mirage cost $630 million to build, $500 million more than any other previous casino in Las
Vegas.
 73

MGM Grand, The Luxor, Mandalay Bay, and the Stratosphere amongst others. Other

casinos such as Caesar’s Palace and Circus-Circus went through extensive renovations

that added more space for gambling, introduced new types of games, made the casinos

more extravagant, and added elaborate non-gaming attractions (Hopkins, 2004b, Land

& Land, 2004). Altogether in the ten years after the Mirage opened, 11 major resorts

were built along the Las Vegas Strip (Rothman, 2002a). Furthermore, Las Vegas

added 84,286 hotel and casino jobs in the period between 1989 and 2000, almost

doubling its employment in this sector (Land & Land, 2004).

A significant feature of these new casinos is that they offered a wide array of

entertainment options to visitors other than gaming. For example, the Excalibur

features live jousting, the Bellagio and the Venetian feature art museums, and several

casinos built extensive shopping malls. Another significant feature of the Mirage-

phase casinos was their theming. All of the Mirage-phase casinos were built around

particular themes such as the Excalibur Casino, which is designed around a medieval

theme, and the Paris casino, which recreated many of the sites of the city from which

it takes its name. This theming and the developing of non-gaming attractions was part

of casino operators’ efforts to make Las Vegas more palatable to families and

mainstream America (Hopkins, 2004, Land & Land, 2004). Although Las Vegas did

become a popular tourist destination with mainstream America to a degree it never had

previously, its appeal as family vacation spot remained limited (Littlejohn 1999).

Other Strip casino operators who did not have the financial resources to either

open new Mirage-style casinos or substantially renovate their existing properties were

began to focus on budget-minded tourists. Most Strip operators were successfully able

to make this transition, causing downtown operators to lose a substantial portion of

their consumer base. Downtown casino operators also had to deal with the

proliferation of neighborhood casinos that happened around this time, which siphoned
 74

off a large amount of the downtown’s local consumer base as well. These changes

further contributed to Las Vegas’s already declining downtown (Alexander, 2002,

Rothman, 2002a, Land & Land, 2004).

The Mirage-phase casinos caught on with the American public, and by the

early 1990s Las Vegas had clearly surpassed Atlantic City as the prime gaming center

in the United States. The numbers of visitors to Las Vegas mushroomed, and casino

operators had no trouble filling all their new hotel rooms. This growth in the industry

was aided significantly by the booming economy of the 1990s (Hopkins, 2004, Land

& Land, 2004).

The city’s growing casino industry created enormous demand for new workers,

causing Las Vegas’s population to explode. The population of Clark County increased

from an estimated 691,467 in 1989 to 1,375,765 in 2000. In the period between 1986

and 2001, Las Vegas was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States.

Furthermore, as the stigma attached to gambling receded, so did the stigma attached to

Las Vegas. This lead to non-gaming employers such as CitiCorp, Ocean Spray

Cranberries and Ethel M Chocolates to move in to the area, creating a more diverse

economic base for Las Vegas.

Present-Day Las Vegas

Since the 1990s Las Vegas has gone through numerous changes, but the casino

industry has continued to thrive. The only time the industry appeared to struggle was

right after 9/11. In March of 2000 the MGM staged a surprise, unfriendly takeover of

Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts. This left Steve Wynn with no properties along the

Strip, effectively signaling the end of an era in Las Vegas.

William Bennett was another influential Las Vegas casino operator who left

the industry during this period. Bennent was forced out of his Circus-Circus

Enterprises in 1994. Although he retained one property, the Sahara, which he

 75

controlled until his death in 2002, with the loss of Circus-Circus Enterprises Bennent

was no longer a major force in Las Vegas’s gaming industry. William Bennett was

notable because he pioneered the idea that Las Vegas could be a family destination.

As far back as 1968, when he built Circus-Circus, Bennett was trying to build casinos

which catered to the needs of families. The absence of both William Bennett and

Steve Wynn from the gambling industry is also notable because both placed a high

value on establishing a cooperative relationship with the Culinary Workers Union and

signed contracts with the union after which the other casino operators loosely

patterned their contracts (Rothman, 2002a, Land & Land, 2004).

The marketing strategies of the major casino operators along the Strip were

also changing. Instead of focusing on family-orientated entertainment, many of the

new casinos along the strip began adopt more of a Disneyland-for-adults theme,

perhaps best characterized by the new official motto for Las Vegas: “What happens in

Vegas stays in Vegas.” Newer casinos such as the Palms and the Hard Rock Café

focused on attracting young and hip consumers, rather than families (Land & Land,

2004)

Although the casino industry in Las Vegas continued to thrive in spite of the

recession in the early part of this decade, it did suffer a dramatic if relatively short-

term fallout from the 9/11 attacks. Although hotel occupancy rebounded after only a

couple of months, room rates stayed depressed well into 2003. The attacks led to

widespread lay-offs in Las Vegas’s casino industry, as interest in tourism disappeared

almost overnight. At the peak of the crisis about 30,000 casino employees had lost

their jobs, and even more had their hours cut back so that they were only working part-

time. These layoffs, compounded by the falloff in tourism following September 11th,

caused shock waves through Las Vegas’s non-gaming economy as well, since it was
 76

heavily dependent on the spending of both tourists and casino workers (Rothman,

2002b).

A year after the 9/11 attacks, however, the casino industry was back in full

gear and was clearly in expansionary mode (Rothman, 2002b). Several new casinos

are under construction along the Strip. Steve Wynn has reentered Las Vegas’s Casino

Industry with his new casino, which he named after himself. Several other casinos are

undergoing substantial renovations and/or expansion. Furthermore, the primary

neighborhood casino chains, Stations and Coast, have continued to thrive. In contrast,

the casino industry in downtown Las Vegas is still in decline, with no hope of

recovery on the horizon (Pappageorge, 2005)

Conclusion

This chapter provided a brief background and history of the Las Vegas gaming

industry, and the environment in which the 2002 negotiations took place. As will be

discussed in the following chapters this environment had a profound influence on the

Culinary Union’s strategic choices and their outcomes in the 2002 contract

negotiations. However, it is important to take into account the local’s internal as well

as external environment when discussing the influence of context in the 2002

negotiations. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Culinary Union’s

internal environment consists of its history, culture, structure, skills, resources, and

long-term practices. These factors all have had a profound impact on the union’s

choice of strategies and the effectiveness of those strategies in the 2002 negotiations.

The next chapter will discuss the history of the Culinary Union, and the union’s

internal practices and strategies in the years leading up to the negotiations. It will also

discuss the bargaining environment’s influence on the negotiations themselves.

Chapter V: Culinary Workers Union Local 226 – History and
Context

Introduction

This chapter chronicles the history of the Culinary Union from its beginning in

the 1930s through the beginning of the Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign. It

will describe how the Culinary Union developed the internal capacity to launch its

ambitious 2002 contract campaign. The union’s rank-and-file mobilization capability

was the key to its success in the 2002 contract negotiations. In the years prior to the

2002 contract campaign the Culinary Union pursued several long-term practices and

strategies that increased its rank-and-file leadership skills, developed strong

communication networks between union leaders, staff, and members, cultivated

member commitment to the union, and created a culture which encouraged rank-and-

file participation in the union. This chapter will describe how current culture,

practices, and strategies of the Culinary Union came into being as well as the historical

development of the local overall. In so doing this chapter will look at the Culinary

Union’s contract administration, contract negotiation, external organizing, and

political activities, examining how they both complemented and undermined each

other throughout the history of the Culinary Union.

Beginning in the late 1980s the Culinary Union went through a comprehensive

revitalization process that encompassed its contract administration, contract

negotiation, external organizing, and political activities. This revitalization process

did not occur in each area of union activity separately; rather revitalization in one

sphere of activity helped to reinforce the revitalization process in others. The Culinary

Union recognized these relationships and pursued a strategy during this era that took

advantage of the mutually reinforcing nature of these linkages. This revitalization

process and the strategies pursued by the Culinary Union during this period were

77
 78

major contributing factors to the effectiveness of the local’s 2002 comprehensive

contract campaign. The final section of this will focus on the relatively recent

revitalization of the Culinary Union and its influence on the 2002 round of contract

negotiations.

History of the Culinary Union through the 1980s

Early History

The Culinary Union’s roots date back to the 1930s when HERE began

organizing hotels nationwide as part of the surge in industrial unionism that took place

during the New Deal (Cobble & Merrill, 1994, Rothman, 2002). The local was

chartered by HERE in 1938 with a membership of between 500 and 1,000 workers

(Culinary Union, 2002). The union remained small and only became influential after

World War II, when HERE’s international office sent Elmer “Al” Bramlet to Las

Vegas to help build the local (Rothman, 2002a).

Bramlet was born on a farm near Jonesboro, Arkansas. He came from a

poverty-stricken southern farming family. The family’s already poor economic

situation was made worse by the Great Depression, and as a result Bramlet left home

and traveled about the country working menial odd jobs. He served in the Navy

during World War II and was discharged from the Navy in Los Angeles, where he

found work as a bartender. There he joined an HERE-affiliated bartender’s local and

soon became a business agent. After working as a business agent for a couple of years

in Los Angeles, the international office of HERE sent him to Las Vegas to help build

the local; it was then an emerging tourist destination. (Rothman 2002a)

Bramlet built the Culinary Union from the ground up, organizing workers

already in Las Vegas and traveling around the country recruiting individuals to work

in Las Vegas’s casinos. Las Vegas at the time was still a small and isolated city that
 79

was incapable of generating a sufficient workforce for its burgeoning gaming industry.

Facing a severe labor shortage, casino operators allowed the Culinary Union into their

casinos as long as the local was able to furnish operators with a steady supply of

qualified workers. Bramlet would spend months on the road, recruiting workers for

Las Vegas’s casinos. He would mainly recruit young people in the south on anperson-

by-person basis. Since he came from a poor southern background himself, he was

very successful in convincing these types of people to move to Las Vegas to work in

its casinos (Rothman, 2002a).

Casino operators generally hired their workers from the Culinary Union’s

hiring hall, meaning that in addition to providing the casino operators with a labor

force the Culinary Union also screened applicants for casino jobs. This system

granted the Culinary Union a great deal of power in Las Vegas’s gaming industry.

This was one of the primary reasons why casino operators did not oppose Culinary

Union organizing at their properties (Benz, 2004, Rothman, 2002).

With the support of all the members he helped bring to Las Vegas, Bramlet

was elected to the Culinary Union’s most powerful position, secretary-treasurer, in

1954. Bramlet’s leadership style was autocratic, and he maintained an iron discipline

within the local through a combination of charisma and intimidation (Rothman,

2002a). He played favorites and cultivated a dedicated cadre around him, ensuring

their allegiance with money, power, and in some cases a share of the spoils in other

businesses he ran on the side13 (Rothman, 2002a). Bramlet also cultivated support
amongst African-American members by negotiating contractual provisions that were

favorable to occupations where they predominated (Rothman, 2002a).

13
In addition to serving as Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union, Bramlet maintained several
business interests that primarily catered to the casinos with which the local had contracts (Hopkins
1999).
 80

Bramlet did not use a negotiating team when negotiating a contract and instead

met with casino owners himself. The owners themselves often came from working

class backgrounds and enjoyed a good rapport with Bramlet in negotiations. Signed

contracts were rarely used in these negotiations, just “understandings sealed with a

hand shake” (Rothman, 2002a). So interpersonal relationships played an important

role in determining collective bargaining outcomes in Las Vegas’s gaming industry

during this period. The terms Bramlet negotiated were considered to be the best in the

industry and were often used as models by other HERE locals across the country

(Rothman, 2002a).

One of the key provisions in all of Bramlet’s contracts was a guaranteed

minimum gratuity for all customers in order to help tipped workers’ problems with

highly variable pay (Rothman, 2002a). Another important provision gave Banquet

waiters a cut of the highly lucrative banquet profits. (Rothman, 2002a). Also included

in the contracts were firm work rules. These were important because the unskilled

nature of most casino work made it easy for casino employers to increase the

workload of casino employees (Rothman, 2002a). These favorable contract provisions

created a strong sense of loyalty among Culinary Union members for Bramlet.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the Culinary Union thrived under Bramlet.

When Bramlet became secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union in 1954, its

membership was 2,000; by 1963 the union had 8,000 members (Hopkins, 1999), and

by 1967 membership was up to 16,000 (Rothman, 2002). In 1963, Jude Wanniski, a

columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the time, estimated that union density

in Las Vegas’s casino industry was 98% in occupations traditionally represented by

the Culinary Workers Union (Hopkins, 2004a).

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Corporatization of Las Vegas

The corporate takeover of the Las Vegas gaming industry signaled a shift in

labor management relations. The management philosophy of corporate casino owners

was very different from that of the mafia-linked operators, leading to a more

acrimonious relationship with the Culinary Union. For example, while mafia owners

treated much of the non-gaming functions of their operations as loss leaders, the new

corporate owners focused on making each sector of the casino profitable (Rothman,

2002a). Furthermore, the informal and familiar relationship between casino operators

and Bramlet was replaced by a much harder-edged and legalistic relationship. No

longer were contracts settled with a handshake, and increasingly written formalized

contracts became the norm. The new corporate casino operators did not have the kind

of paternalistic goodwill towards their workers that their mobbed up predecessors had.

This led to a common attitude amongst veteran casino employees and industry

observers that the mob bosses treated casino employees much better than the corporate

owners that followed them (Benz, 2004).

Therefore, the dawn of the corporate era in Las Vegas was marked by the local

gaming industry’s first strikes. In 1967, the Culinary Union went out on its first strike,

shutting down twelve downtown hotels before a contract was reached. Unable to

reach an agreement in the following round of negotiations in 1970, the Culinary Union

struck three Strip properties: the Las Vegas Hilton, the Desert Inn, and Caesar’s Palace

(Hopkins, 1999). These casinos incurred significant losses as a result of the strike.

Eventually the union forced the casino operators to settle on their terms, and the four-

day strike lead to wage and benefit increases amounting to 31.5 percent over three

years. The losses the casino operators incurred from the strike dampened the casino

operators’ appetite for taking on the Culinary Union, and in the next round of

negotiations in 1973 the companies signed a three-year contract without conflict.

 82

However, when the next contract expired in 1976 the Culinary Union was unable to

reach an agreement with the casino operators, so it struck over wage increases and the

terms of the no-strike, no-lockout clause in their contract. In this first city-wide strike

in the history of Las Vegas’s gaming industry, the Culinary joined the Musicians

Union and the Teamsters, striking 15 resorts for 15 days. Eventually, the two sides

settled, with management largely conceding to the union’s wage and other demands

(Rothman, 2002a)

Death of Al Bramlet and decline of the Culinary Union

Al Bramlet was murdered in 1977. The murder was never solved but had all

the characteristics of a mob hit. Bramlet’s death came as part of a spike in mob

violence in Las Vegas resulting from a mafia attempt to maintain its power base in the

city in the face of growing corporate dominance in the local gaming industry

(Rothman, 2002a). Furthermore, Bramlet had created a sense of resentment in the

HERE international office by preserving the independence of the Culinary Union.

When Ed Hanley became president of HERE in 1973, one of his major goals was

centralizing the union’s local health and welfare fund, under control of the

international. Hanley was known to have connections to organized crime, especially

to the mob in Chicago, which also had a big stake in Las Vegas’s casino industry.

Bramlet’s resistance to efforts to merge the Culinary Union’s health and welfare fund

with international’s created much resentment in Hanley’s new administration

(Hopkins, 2004). Either or both of these factors are probably responsible for

Bramlet’s murder. At the time of Bramlet’s death, Culinary Union membership was

between 20,000 and 30,000 (Rothman, 2002a).

Ben Schmoutey was Bramlet’s first successor. Schmoutey came up through

the rank-and-file and was a former fry cook. He lacked Bramlet’s leadership ability

and charisma. Specifically, Schmoutey had little negotiating experience or skill.

 83

Furthermore, he was linked to organized crime and therefore was dogged by legal

troubles, which began to tarnish the reputation of the Culinary Union in general

(Rothman, 2002a).

Under Schmoutey’s leadership the Strip’s first non-union casino, the Imperial

Palace, opened in 1979. The union put up minimal resistance to this new casino. This

created a great deal of consternation amongst the Culinary Union’s members.

Furthermore, during Schmoutey’s tenure the Culinary Union’s leadership and staff

became increasingly inaccessible to the members, further alienating the rank-and-file.

In 1980, the Culinary Union negotiated a contract that included a no strike pledge that

violated the agreement the union had with other unions to honor each others’ picket

lines. This ended any solidarity efforts between the Culinary Union and other unions

representing workers in Las Vegas’s casinos (Rothman, 2002a).

In 1981, Jeff McColl beat Schmoutey handily in a union election that featured

mob goons harassing and intimidating McColl supporters as they went to vote.

Although he was not linked to the mafia, McColl proved to be no more of an effective

a leader than Schmoutey. Support for the union continued to decline during McColl’s

administration, and it allowed Culinary Union membership to decline to below 20,000,

down 20% from when Bramlet was killed (Rothman, 2002a).

1984 Strike

The Culinary Union reached its nadir in 1984 when Las Vegas casino

operators provoked a strike in the hope of winning significant concessions from the

union or breaking it outright. Taking advantage of the Culinary Union’s weakened

position and the anti-union atmosphere that prevailed in the country during the 1980s,

the Nevada Resort Association (NRA), an association of corporate Las Vegas casino

operators, decided to take an aggressive approach in the negotiations. The NRA

managed to enlist the support of the smaller non-corporate privately owned casinos in
 84

their fight. However, as tensions rose during the negotiations and a strike seemed

imminent, some of these private casino operators decided to settle with the union,

rather than follow the casino operators’ lead in provoking a fight with the Culinary

Union (Rothman, 2002a, Alexander, 2002).

In the negotiations leading up to the strike, The NRA insisted on several

concessionary demands that were unacceptable to the union. These demands included

rescinding many of the work rules that protected workers from excessive workloads,

giving the NRA control over the union’s health plan, elimination of the 40-hour

workweek, and reduced guaranteed gratuities (Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002a).

Without strong support of the rank-and-file, McColl was in a difficult position.

Accepting the NRA’s terms would be a complete defeat for the union, significantly

lowering its members’ standard of living. However, McColl was not sure if he had

enough support within the union to pull off a successful strike. Furthermore, in the

current anti-union political climate the Culinary Union risked decertification if the

strike lasted for more than a year. Forced into a corner, McColl chose to fight, so

tensions mounted throughout the negotiations until the union called a strike on April

2nd, 1984 (Rothman, 2002a).

Casino operators got an injunction that placed strict restrictions on the union
members’ ability to picket. In addition, casino operators hired police officers to stand

guard outside their casinos. Tensions between striking workers and the police

escalated quickly, and soon violent confrontations broke-out. Roughly nine hundred

demonstrators were arrested, and the police used tear gas on the strikers. Images of

the police tear-gassing and beating strikers were broadcast across America, creating a

public relations disaster for the gaming industry, which was trying to improve its

image after several high-profile cases drawing attention to the mob’s remaining

influence in the local industry. These images caused travelers to avoid Las Vegas, not
 85

wanting a labor conflict to ruin their vacations. The strike lasted 67 days and cost the

local gaming industry $60 million in lost revenue. Business fell off by 9.6 percent on

the Strip and 10.3 percent downtown in the first month of the walkout. Furthermore,

the bad publicity created by the strike undermined casino operators’ lobbying efforts

to get casino-style gaming legalized outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City

(Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002a).

These factors forced casino operators to compromise and settle with the union

after two months. This strike demonstrated to corporate casino operators that strikes

are still an effective weapon in their industry, even as the effectiveness of the tactic

became highly questionable in most other sectors in the United States. The strike with

the corporate casino operators was settled in June 1984, and provided for a five-year

contract with small increases in wages and contributions to the health insurance fund

and an 80% new hire rate for the first year of employment. Although the Culinary

Union avoided disaster in the strike, the contract they eventually signed was

considered by most to be weak, and a precursor to the local’s further decline.

(Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002a, Benz 2004).

However, a few privately owned casinos who had joined the NRA in

provoking the strike opted not to settle with the Culinary Union. These private casinos

were not as vulnerable to the pressures that led the corporate casinos to settle with the

union. Privately-run casinos did not have to answer to the concerns of investors who

worried over lost revenue over a relatively short-time period. Secondly, privately

owned casinos were not trying to expand into jurisdictions where casino-style

gambling was then prohibited (Alexander, 2002). Unaffected by these factors, these

private operators, lead by the Boyd Group, decided to continue the fight. Eventually

they were able to decertify the union at six locations: Sam’s Town, The California,

(Both operated by the Boyd Group), the Four Queens, The Marina, The Holiday Inn
 86

South (currently the Boardwalk), and the Holiday Inn International, which later

became Main Street Station (Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002a).

Seeing the success that these casino operators had had breaking the union,

several other privately run casinos, who had previously settled with the union, began

to renege on their contracts. The most prominent in this group was long-time casino

operator Jackie Gaughan, who owned the El Cortez and the Western. The operators of

the Union Plaza, the Las Vegas Club, the Golden Gate, and the Showboat followed

Gaughan’s lead and froze wages and ignored contract-mandated increases in health

insurance payments. This issue provoked another long battle with the Culinary Union,

which extended over the next couple of years.

Overall, the 1984 strike was costly for the Culinary Union, and many industry

experts thought it signaled the beginning of the end for the local. Although Local 226

had withstood most employers’ attempts to win significant contract concessions or

bust the union outright, the union lost six hotels, and several family operators were

openly refusing to live up to the newly signed contract. Many gaming industry experts

expected the union to capitulate completely in the next round of negotiations

(Alexander, 2002).

Revitalization of the Culinary Union

After the brutal citywide strike of 1984, the Culinary Union took stock of its

current situation and embarked upon an ambitious revitalization strategy. The

beginnings of the Culinary Union’s revitalization efforts date back to 1987, when Jim

Arnold was elected secretary-treasurer of the local. Jim Arnold is a native of Las

Vegas and spent most of his life in the Culinary Union. He grew up in a union family;

his father was a unionized construction worker. Arnold began work in the casino

industry as a houseman, picking up and delivering laundry for the Las Vegas Sands.

He became a shop steward and then a union rep in 1974. He was generally considered
 87

to be in Bramlet’s inner circle (Lampros, 1999). In order to help the Culinary Union’s

revitalization efforts, in 1987 the international sent a team of highly regarded

organizers, several of whom had played a leading role in the 1984 strike. These

organizers began to build a rank-and-file organizing committees in each of the casinos.

The union tried to make these committees as reflective of the membership as possible,

in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, occupation, and shift. Members of these

committees participated in the union’s decision making process, attended negotiations,

kept their co-workers informed about union affairs, and mobilized their co-workers

around workplace issues (Alexander, 2002).

Mopping up after the 1984 Strike

In December of 1987, just as the internal organizing process was getting

underway, a federal judge ordered the privately owned casino operators who had

reneged on their contract with the Culinary Union to begin to honor their contracts and

pay millions of dollars in back wages and benefits. The downtown casinos continued

to appeal this decision. This ruling jump-started the union’s campaign to make these

casinos live up to their contracts, starting a battle with downtown casinos that would

climax with the 1989 contract negotiations.

In the spring of 1988 union members picketed the privately owned casinos that

were not complying with their contracts, delivered petitions to management, and

publicized their disputes to tour groups and travel agencies. The union also began to

utilize corporate campaign tactics against these casino operators. In one case, the

union was almost able to defeat a poison pill measure that prevented a pro-union

operator from taking over the Showboat Casino. The Culinary Union also distributed

videos telling the story of a federal indictment for racketeering charges against

Binion’s Horseshoe, making it difficult for the casino to get a license to operate

casinos in jurisdictions outside of Las Vegas (Alexander 2002).

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The next big flareup in the conflict occurred when the privately owned

Binion’s Horseshoe illegally fired the bargaining committee after the committee

opposed the casino’s contract offer. On Jan 19th 1990, after filing numerous ULPs, the
union struck the casino. The casino’s founder, Benny Binion, had just died and his

son had inherited the casino. Benny Binion was a local legend and was very politically

connected; in addition, he inspired a strong loyalty from his clientele which was only

heightened after his death. Furthermore, the casino was one of downtown’s few

thriving properties. Nevertheless, after months of picketing consumers began to go

elsewhere, especially locals who were drawn away by the emerging neighborhood

casinos. Overall it was estimated that the strike cost Binion’s Horseshoe $16 million,

and the casino settled with the union in November, 1990.

With the Binion’s Horseshoe strike settled, the Culinary Union began to focus

on the Boyd Group. In 1985, federal regulators gave control of Stardust and the

Fremont Hotel to the Boyd Group after their former owners were found to have

connections to organized crime. Both of these properties employed Culinary Union

members and therefore the Boyd Group went on the offensive against the union. In

response, the union began to build up its rank-and-file committees in those casinos.

The union discovered the company was highly leveraged and its profits were

decreasing, so it developed a relationship with the company’s lenders and through this

relationship put pressure on the company. As a result of these pressure tactics the

Boyd Group eventually decided to settle with the union.

Furthermore, because the downtown casinos are located so close together, the

Boyd Group, concerned that the effects of a strike against one of the other downtown

operators would spill over to its own properties, corralled the other remaining

downtown casino operators into settling with the union. The settlement with the Boyd

Group wrapped up the final loose ends remaining from the 1984 strike, marking the
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end of an era for the Culinary Union. This meant that by the beginning of the 1990s

the union had successfully warded off the most serious threat to its existence in its

history. It also enabled the union to concentrate its efforts on maintaining its density

during the rapid growth of the casino industry along the Strip that was about to take

place over the next decade.

Obtaining Card-Check Neutrality along the Strip

During the 1990s the membership of the Culinary more than doubled. This

was largely the result of the expansion of the casino industry along the Las Vegas

Strip during the 1990s, and the card-check-neutrality language that was included in all

of the Culinary Union’s contracts with most of the major Strip casino operators. The

local first negotiated this language in 1989, and it covered any new property opened

by most of the major casino operators during the length of the contract. This contract

language was rolled over into subsequent contracts the Culinary Union had with the

major Strip operators as well as later added to the contracts the Culinary Union held

with all the other Las Vegas Casino operators.

There were a number of factors that contributed to the Culinary Union’s ability

to obtain such favorable terms in its labor contracts. These factors were the result of

changes that were taking place in the late 1980s in the gaming industry as well as the

revitalization process the Culinary Union was going through at the time. The result of

these factors was that going into the 1989 negotiations, the Culinary enjoyed a greater

degree of leverage over the casino operators, particularly the major Strip operators.

Recognizing these factors, the Culinary Union and Golden Nugget, Inc., which

was owned by Steve Wynn, settled on a contract whereby the Golden Nugget Inc.

agreed not to oppose union organization at its future strip properties and to recognize

the Culinary Union once 50% plus one of its employees within a bargaining unit had

signed union cards. In return the Culinary Union agreed to: not take economic action
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against the company for the period of the contract, use its lobbying power on behalf of

the gaming industry, reduce the number of job categories in the contract, and forgo

some increases in compensation the union would have otherwise have received. This

contract set the standard for most of the other major Strip casino operators: Circus-

Circus, Caesar’s Palace, the Las Vegas and Flamingo Hilton, The Tropicana, and

Bally’s14 (Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002a, Pappageorge 2003, Greenhouse, 2004).

There were a number of factors that led the major Strip casino operators to

pursue a much more conciliatory strategy in the 1989 round of contract negotiations

than they had in 1984. First, casino operators faced a very tight labor market at the

end of 1980s. Rapid expansion of the casino industry in Las Vegas at the time,

particularly at the higher end of the market, meant that there was a dramatic increase

in the demand for qualified workers. However, Las Vegas was still too small and

isolated to provide a sufficient workforce for these casinos. These factors placed a

premium on workers in Las Vegas that were qualified to work in the higher-end

casinos. This meant that it would be hard for casinos to recruit a sufficient number of

qualified replacement workers if the 1989 negotiations ended in a strike or lockout.

Furthermore, as a result of this shortage of labor, casino operators became more reliant

on the Culinary Union’s traditional role of recruiting and screening potential

employees for Las Vegas’s casinos, and this gave casino operators another incentive to

develop a constructive relationship with the Culinary Union (Rothman, 2002a).

Secondly, even before the expansion, the Culinary Union already represented a

large majority of casino workers in Las Vegas, which gave it a significant amount of

leverage in the industry. This greatly enhanced the union’s ability to engage in

collective action against casino operators and made the operators fearful of the effects

of poor labor relations on service quality in their casinos. Service quality is very

14
The one major strip operator not to agree to these terms was MGM.
 91

important in the casino industry; it is often what distinguishes popular from less

popular properties. This especially is the case amongst the Strip casinos in Las Vegas,

because these casinos are overwhelmingly higher-end facilities, where the importance

of service quality is especially acute. The clientele of higher-end casinos are

especially sensitive to poor service; therefore service quality can have a dramatic

impact on casino operators’ bottom line (Rothman, 2002a, Rothman, 2003, Benz,

2004).

Another factor which operated in the union’s favor in 1989 is that there is a

strong union consciousness amongst workers in Las Vegas, especially in the casino

industry. Unlike most other cities in the southwest, Las Vegas has historically had a

strong labor movement. Native Las Vegans usually had parents who were union

members and, therefore, were favorably disposed towards unions. Furthermore,

because Las Vegas is largely a one-industry town, many of their parents were actually

members of the Culinary Union. For the same reason it is not uncommon to have

multiple people from the same families belonging to the Culinary Union. These

factors contributed to a tradition of strong union sentiment and sense of community

amongst Las Vegas’ casino workforce, which made it easier for the Culinary Union to

mobilize its members for the 1989 negotiations (Pappageorge, 2003, Benz, 2004).

Casino operators were also anxious to avoid a strike in the 1989 negotiations

because they were carrying a lot of debt from all the new development that was going

on at the time. Las Vegas’s casino industry experienced a dramatic building boom

that began in the late 1980s and continued through the end of the 1990s as each casino

operator rushed to develop multiple Mirage-style casinos. These new casinos were

primarily financed by high-interest junk bonds, which meant that casino operators at

the time were facing expensive debt servicing requirements, and would have a difficult
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time affording a disruption in revenue caused by a strike (Rothman 2002a, Benz,

2004).

Not only were gaming companies rapidly expanding in Las Vegas, they were

also trying to introduce casino-style gambling to new jurisdictions where it had

previously been prohibited. In addition to exacerbating casino operators’ debt

problems, this expansionary effort made casino operators more public-relations

conscious. This was because casino operators relied on public officials and ballot

initiatives to rescind prohibitions on casino-style gambling in jurisdictions all across

the country. Casino operators did not want a repeat of the public-relations nightmare

caused by the mass arrests and tear gas that characterized the 1984 strike, undermining

their efforts to convince voters and public officials of the benefits of bringing casino-

style gambling to their communities. Furthermore, one of the key arguments that

casino operators used in these efforts was that casino-style gambling would bring

good-paying jobs to economically depressed areas. It would have been hard for casino

operators to make this a convincing argument if they were simultaneously engaged in

a labor with the Culinary Workers Union (Rothman, 2003).

The Culinary Union’s parent organization, HERE, also had a set of political

relationships that it could utilize to increase its power vis-à-vis the gaming industry.

The casino industry at the time was not very well connected to politicians and public

officials in jurisdictions outside of Nevada. Because unions were a significant force in

areas targeted by the gaming industry for expansion, such as Detroit and Chicago,

HERE often enjoyed a stronger relationships with public officials in these areas than

gaming operators. HERE used these relationships both to prevent anti-union operators

from getting gaming licenses, and to help union-friendly operators obtain gaming

licenses (Alexander, 2005).

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Furthermore, Steve Wynn, who became in the late-1980s the leading casino

operator in Las Vegas, had a history of working to establish cooperative relationships

with the unions that were represented in his facilities. Steve Wynn was the first to

negotiate a card-check neutrality agreement with the Culinary Workers Union in 1989;

and this contract became the model upon which all other subsequent contracts between

the major operators and Culinary Union were patterned in that round of negotiations

(Rothman, 2002a).

The Culinary Union’s revitalization effort in the late 1980s was another factor

behinds its ability to gain card-check neutrality language in its contracts with major

strip operators. The Culinary Union painstakingly built representative rank-and-file

bargaining committees in each of the casinos and greatly increased its ability to

mobilize its members for a contract campaign. Furthermore, the Culinary Union

developed the capacity to wage effective corporate campaigns against its opponents.

The Culinary Union’s ability to effectively mobilize its members and put pressure on

employers in a contract fight was demonstrated in its battles with the family-owned

casinos who reneged on their contracts after the 1984 strike (Alexander, 2002, Benz,

2004, Alexander, 2005).

Recognizing their vulnerability to union collective action and the extent to

which the Culinary Union had revitalized itself, the major strip casino operators, lead

by Steve Wynn, approached the 1989 negotiations in a much more conciliatory

manner. Corporate casino operators did not want labor strife to jeopardize the success

of their newly opened and planned Mirage-phase casinos or their efforts to expand into

new jurisdictions across the country and overseas. Therefore, in the 1989 negotiations

they were especially interested in avoiding a costly strike like the one that occurred in

1984. Thus the Culinary Union was not only able to dissuade casino operators from

completing the union-busting effort they had begun in 1984, but were also able to get
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organizing neutrality language included in its contracts with most of the major

operators, which formed the basis of its growth in the 1990s (Rothman, 2002a,

Rothman, 2003).

Culinary Union during the 1990s

Starting with the 1989 contract, labor-management relations in Las Vegas’s

gaming industry were much less antagonistic in the 1990s than they had been in the

1980s. Although there were some major labor battles in the industry such as the

Frontier Strike and the Culinary Union’s efforts to organize the MGM Grand and the

Santa Fe, most casino operators had a cordial relationship with the Culinary Union.

The decline in antagonism was largely the result of the same combination of factors

that lead to the 1989 contract settlement, including the recognition by most casino

operators that the Culinary Union was a legitimate and powerful player in Las Vegas’s

casino industry.

This image of the Culinary Union as a reemerged power player in Las Vegas’s

casino industry was strengthened by series of bruising battles the Culinary Union

waged throughout the decade against a number of anti-union casino operators; these

conflicts include efforts to organize the MGM Grand and the Santa Fe as well as a

campaign to prevent the Frontier from busting the union. It should be noted that

although these battles serve as very visible indicators of the power the Culinary Union

enjoyed in its bargaining relationships with employers, they do not represent the

relationship that the Culinary Union had with most of the casino operators during the

1990s. Although not all of these efforts were successful, they did demonstrate to

casino operators that they could expect a protracted and costly struggle if they tried

open their casinos non-union or demand concessionary contracts from the Culinary

Union (Alexander, 2002, Benz, 2004).

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MGM Organizing Campaign

Arguably, the most important battle the Culinary Union faced in the 1990s was

organizing the MGM Grand, the largest casino in Las Vegas. The MGM Grand was

scheduled to be opened in 1992, replacing the old MGM casino which had been torn

down in the late 1980s. The management of MGM had never accepted the partnership

model of labor relations in Las Vegas as practiced by casino operators such as Steve

Wynn. MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian hired Robert Maxey to manage the MGM Grand.

Robert Maxey had previously been a manager at one of the downtown casinos that had

resisted settling with the Culinary Union during the 1984 strike. Maxey was

ideologically opposed to unions and collective bargaining and thus waged a highly

public and costly campaign to prevent the union from organizing MGM Grand’s

employees. In order to prevent unionization, the MGM Grand paid above union scale

and provided employees with a very generous benefit package. However, as a result

of these policies the casino struggled to remain profitable and also suffered from low

service ratings (Alexander, 2002, Benz, 2004).

The MGM campaign was multifaceted and designed in such a way that one

part reinforced the other. The union’s corporate campaign strategy was to convince

lenders and investors that Maxey was spending more to keep the union out than he

would if he just operated with the union. The campaign also sought to portray Maxey

as generally unfit to lead the casino. The union produced literature showing operating

losses at the three previous casinos Maxey had managed. The union warned the

investment community of Maxey’s poor labor relations record. The union also pointed

out to investors that companies that fought unionization in Las Vegas had trouble

expanding into new jurisdictions, and thus were unable to take advantage of the

relaxation of gaming laws in most states (Alexander, 2002, Benz, 2004).

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The Culinary Union also pursued a variety of political strategies against the

MGM Grand The Local campaigned heavily against local state political candidates

that were supported by MGM and contributed to political candidates in areas targeted

for expansion by MGM. These candidates either were opposed to the expansion of

gaming outright or favored union-friendly casino operators. The Culinary Union also

won the support of the district attorney, who gave them the right to protest in front of

the MGM, free from restrictions. Therefore, the union did not have to deal with

restrictive injunctions as it had during the 1984 strike. This enabled the union to hold

several large demonstrations outside of the MGM Grand involving thousands of union

members and their supporters. For example, the MGM’s opening in December of

1992 was marred by thousands of protesting Culinary Union members and their allies

(Alexander, 2002, Benz, 2004).

The Local also developed a strong grassroots organizing campaign that

developed a representative organizing committee in the shop. This committee was to

engage in collective actions and communicate with workers that union organizers were

unable reach. This organizing committee was built much in the same way that the

Culinary Union had built its bargaining committee to fight back employer attempts to

win concessionary contracts and bust the union in other Las Vegas casinos

(Alexander, 2002, Benz, 2004).

The final leverage point in the MGM campaign was the Culinary Union’s

political tactics. In 1997, MGM had decided to build a casino in Detroit, the historical

center of auto unionism, and a place where gambling had recently been legalized. To

build a casino there, MGM needed to win one of the three available gaming licenses,

something that HERE in solidarity with other unions was able to prevent if the MGM

continued to fight the organizing campaign in Las Vegas. In order to obtain this

license MGM agreed to card-check neutrality with HERE in Las Vegas and with the
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coalition of unions holding up its license application in Detroit. After obtaining a

card-check neutrality agreement for the MGM Grand, the Culinary Union was able to

sign up workers at the casino and bargaining negotiate a first contract with the

employer (Fantasia and Voss, 2004).

This victory was important to the Culinary Union for a variety of reasons.

First, the MGM Grand was one of the most important casino properties in Las Vegas

and having it operating non-union significantly endangered the Culinary Union’s

bargaining leverage vis-à-vis other gaming operators. Furthermore, the Culinary

Union’s successful campaign demonstrated to other casino operators the external

organizing capability of the Culinary Union and the local’s ability to impair the

business of casino operators who open non-union. Finally, MGM had acted as a

leader for other non-union operators in Las Vegas, so organizing the MGM Grand left

this group leaderless and undermined their ability to coordinate their efforts against

the Culinary Union (Alexander, 2002).

Frontier Strike

The Frontier strike is one of the most well known of all the labor-management

battles that took place during the 1990s. This strike was second longest in the history

of the United States; altogether, it lasted six years and four months (Benz, 2004).

Even more impressively, no union members crossed the picket line for the entire

length of the strike. The stage for the strike was set when the Elardi family bought the

Frontier and Silver Slipper casinos from Howard Hughes’s Summa Corporation in

1988. The Elardis tore down the Silver Slipper to make room for a parking lot and

concentrated on turning the Frontier into an establishment that was singularly

concentrated on gaming activities, offering budget-minded gamblers very little in

other amenities. The Elardis’ cost cutting extended to every aspect of the casino

operation, including labor costs. Like several other privately owned casino operators
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after the 1984 strike they purposefully failed to honor the contracts they had with the

Culinary Union. On Sept 21, 1991, while negotiating a new contract for Frontier, the

Elardis unilaterally implemented several of its new contract proposals, including “the

elimination of pension contributions, wage cuts of up to four dollars an hour, the

gutting of the union grievance procedure, and the implementation of new work rules

and an inferior health plan that left approximately 100 workers ineligible” (Alexander,

2002). In addition, the management of the Frontier had been retaliating against union

activists and committing a number of ULPs. These actions were designed to force the

union to strike the facility so the Elardis could eventually decertify the union.

Accordingly, the implementation of the Elardis’ new contract proposals prompted all

of the Frontier’s Culinary Union members to walk out on strike (Alexander, 2002).

The Elardis’ business strategy was at odds with almost every other casino

operator along the strip in the early 1990s. While most casino operators were trying to

upgrade their properties and make them more attractive to families, the Elardis

stripped their properties of any but the most basic amenities and sought to strictly

appeal to hardcore gamblers rather than families. This strategy, in combination with

their labor relations problems, isolated them from the rest of the Strip casino operators

as well as the southern Nevada political establishment. The Culinary Union reaped

several benefits from the Frontier’s isolation. For example, the police department was

much more lenient towards picketers than they had been in previous confrontations

between casinos and union. Furthermore, the area’s primary newspaper, the very

conservative and anti-union Las Vegas Review-Journal, remained neutral throughout

the strike. Finally, many of the other casino operators openly sympathized with the

Culinary Union. During the early months of the strike the Elardis aggravated their

isolation by placing advertisements in the Los Angeles Times with the headline

“Culinary Union Strikes the Strip,” infuriating the management of other Strip Casinos,
 99

who had settled their labor contracts in part to avoid this type of publicity. The Elardis

initially refused requests by other operators to pull the advertisement. Not until this

false advertising was referred to the District Attorney by the Clark County

Commission did the Frontier desist.

For its part, the union held huge rallies and marches in front of the Frontier,

and almost every time a union convention was held in Las Vegas, the Culinary Union

would get the other union’s delegates to rally in front of the Frontier. The local would

also mobilize their own members to rally in front of the Frontier. In 1991, 12,000

people marched to support the Frontier strikers; a year later 20,000 people marched

(Benz, 2004).

Sustaining the Frontier strike would not have been possible without developing

a strong rank-and-file militancy. Furthermore, the Frontier Strike itself is said to have

cost the union $26 million. The Culinary Union received financial help from both

HERE and the AFL-CIO to help defray the cost of the strike. In addition, Culinary

Union members voted overwhelmingly to increase their dues by 40% in order to

support the strike (Fantasia & Voss, 2004).

The strike cut into the Frontier’s business by 40% in its first year (Fantasia &

Voss, 2004). Union pursued an NLRB strategy that eventually led to the agency

ruling that the strike was a ULP strike, meaning that the Frontier could not

permanently replace the strikers and was liable for the striking workers’ lost wages.

The total liability was estimated at between 10 and 60 million dollars. As the Elardis’

losses continued to mount and the family found itself increasingly isolated from

gaming operators and other power centers in Las Vegas, they eventually decided to

sell the Frontier. In late 1997, in a deal that was mediated by the Culinary Union, the

Elardis sold the Frontier to Phil Ruffin, a hotel owner from Wichita, Kansas. Upon

purchasing the casino, Phil Ruffin promptly signed a contract with the union and
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ended the strike. The Elardis lost an estimated 40% of their normal revenue during the

strike (Fantasia & Voss 2004).

The Frontier strike was also an important victory for the Culinary Union. It

demonstrated to other casino operators the extent to which the Culinary Union was

willing to go in order to prevent having to accept a concessionary contract or be

pushed out of a workplace. Unlike in 1984, when the Culinary Union was decertified

at six casinos with relative ease, in the Frontier Strike the local was able to hold on for

six years without one member crossing the picket line. This demonstrated the

extraordinary ability of the Culinary Union to mobilize its members and keep them

mobilized even in cases of extreme hardship. It also served as another example of the

Culinary Union’s ability to undermine the profitability of casinos operators, if they

adopted a combative posture in the labor relations strategy. As a result of the Frontier

Strike, the Elardis were forced to sell the Frontier Casino and leave the casino industry

altogether, and the Culinary Union was able to preserve working conditions for its

members.

Santa Fe Organizing Campaign

The Culinary Union’s failed attempt to organize the Santa Fe casino was

another important campaign for the local. The campaign lasted for almost ten years,

and although the workers voted for union representation in an NLRB election in 1993,

the Culinary Union was never able to negotiate a first contract with the casino. Rather

than negotiating with the Culinary Union, the casino operators pursued a campaign of

intimidation and harassment of union activists. The Culinary Union’s campaign to

organize the Santa Fe casino demonstrates the difficulties the Culinary Union faced

when organizing through the NLRB election procedures rather than card-check

neutrality, and was a major contributor to the union’s decision to organize exclusively

through card-neutrality rather than through the NLRB election process.

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Workers at the Santa Fe casino first contacted the Culinary Union about

organizing in 1991. At the time, the Santa Fe was operated by the Sahara Gaming

Corporation, which also operated the unionized Sahara and Hacienda casinos along

the Strip. By the fall of 1992 over 75% of Santa Fe employees had signed union cards

demanding recognition by card-check neutrality. Santa Fe’s management refused to

recognize the union and called for an NLRB election. The next year, in an NLRB

election, Santa Fe employees voted 300-241 to join the Culinary Union. However,

Santa Fe’s management still refused to recognize the union and contested the election

results. Santa Fe’s case was dismissed by the NLRB, but the company continued to

appeal. In the fall of 1996, the U.S. District Court of Appeals denied Santa Fe’s

appeal and ordered the casino operator to begin bargaining with the union. In the

three years following the U.S. District Court of Appeals decision ordering the Sahara

Gaming Corp. to bargain with the union, the firm’s negotiating team met with the

Culinary Union officials more than 20 times. However, Culinary Union officials

claimed that Santa Fe’s management was bargaining in bad faith and was not serious

about reaching an agreement with the union. Eventually, in June 2000 the Sahara

Gaming Corp. sold the Santa Fe casino to Station Casinos. However, instead of

bargaining with the union, the new owners simply fired most of the casino’s workers,

thereby relieving itself of its court-imposed requirement to bargain with the Culinary

Union (Alexander, 2002, Batt, 2002).

Throughout the organizing campaign the Sahara Gaming Corp. continually

harassed and intimated its pro-union employees. The Sahara Gaming Corp.’s anti-union
campaign went to extreme lengths to prevent Santa Fe employees from forming a union.

The NLRB charged the Sahara Gaming Corp with 42 ULPs for such violations as illegal

terminations, suspensions, threats to fire, refusals to promote, surveillance, and changes in

benefits. In one instance workers were beaten by a group of thugs wielding baseball bats
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after they left a union meeting. Another pro-union employee was fired after testifying

before the state senate’s labor committee on the Santa Fe’s occupational safety problems.

The wife of the owner of the Sahara Gaming Corp. was serving in the Nevada State

Senate and was a member of the labor committee (Alexander, 2002 Batt, 2002).

In addition to demonstrating why the Culinary Union now relies on card-check

neutrality agreements exclusively for its new organizing campaigns, the Santa Fe

campaign also provides another example of how the local had used corporate

campaign tactics to put significant amounts of pressure on an employer. For example,

the union was successful in preventing the Sahara Gaming Corp. from opening casinos

in jurisdictions where casino-style gambling had recently become legal. The union

was able to do this by first discovering the high levels of debt the Sahara Gaming

Corp. was carrying and then publicizing the casino operators’ financial and labor

difficulties to elected officials, regulators, community leaders, and voters in

jurisdictions where the casino operator was trying to expand (Alexander, 2002).

The Culinary Union also used its knowledge of the Sahara Gaming Corp.’s

financial problems to undermine its ability to secure financing for new casino

development both in Las Vegas and in other jurisdictions. As a result of these efforts,

in July 1995, the Sahara Gaming Corp. had to write off $25 million spent on failed

efforts to build riverboat casinos on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. That same

year the union successfully undermined a $75 million bond offering the Sahara

Gaming Corp. was hoping to use to finance the development of a new property in Las

Vegas (Alexander, 2002).

The Culinary Union also launched a boycott against the Santa Fe which was

publicized through large rallies outside the casino, as well as by contacting casino

customers and vendors. The boycott roughly coincided with the opening of two new

casinos in the Santa Fe’s marketing radius: the Fiesta Hotel and Casino, which opened
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in December 1994, and Texas Hotel and Gambling Hall, which followed in July 1995.

During the boycott, the Santa Fe’s revenues dropped by 40%, and the casino no longer

generated enough cash to pay the interest on the debt it borrowed for its failed

riverboat projects. These setbacks made it even more difficult for the Santa Fe to raise

sufficient revenue to cover its debt payments. Eventually the Sahara Gaming Corp.

was forced to begin selling its properties in order to meet its debt requirements.

Ultimately, as a result of its financial troubles, the Sahara Gaming Corp. was forced to

leave the Las Vegas Gaming market altogether (Alexander, 2002).

The Culinary Union’s campaign took on a political dimension when the union

mounted a successful campaign to unseat State Senator Sue Lowden, the wife of

Sahara Gaming Corp’s owner Paul Lowden. The union mobilized hundreds of

members for an ambitious neighborhood doorbell ringing campaign in support of

Lowden’s rival, Valerie Weiner. Volunteers from the Culinary Union visited

thousands of houses and apartments on Election Day, and the local bused members

and their families to the polls. In the election itself, Valerie Weiner beat Sue Lowden

by nine percentage points. Most political analysts considered Weiner’s victory to be

an upset, in which the Culinary Union played a significant role (Alexander, 2002).

The Culinary Union had put together a political action fund to support its campaign

against Lowden. This fund was maintained after the campaign and continues to this

day, supported by dollar-a-month donations that rank-and-file union members

contribute in addition to their dues. This campaign fund has been used to back union-

endorsed candidates for political office as well as to fund the campaigns of union staff

and rank-and-file leaders who run for political office (Alexander, 2002).

Political Efforts of the Culinary Union during the 1990s

The Culinary Union’s battle with the Frontier, MGM Grande, and Santa Fe

casinos also demonstrated the increasingly powerful presence the union had in state,
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local, and federal politics. In addition to successfully campaigning against candidates

that supported its opponents in the gaming industry, the Culinary Union was able to

elect two of its own members to the state legislature and to defeat an initiative that

would have made it more difficult for the union to raise money for political

campaigns. The Culinary Union’s political efforts during the 1990s left many of its

enemies politically isolated, as casino operators who openly pursued a strategy of

union avoidance were pushed to the margins of the Las Vegas gaming industry. Given

the heavily regulated nature of the gaming industry, the Culinary Union’s rise as a

major political power in the state greatly increased its leverage at the bargaining table

as well as in new organizing campaigns. This is exemplified by the political barriers

faced by anti-union operators such as MGM and the Sahara Gaming Corp. as they

tried to expand their operations beyond Nevada and Atlantic City (Alexander, 2002).

The newfound political power of the Culinary Union also made it a valuable

ally for casino operators who were able to develop cooperative relationships with the

local. In such efforts the Gaming Industry often enlisted the help the Culinary Union

or HERE on some political or regulatory issue and in return offered the union

concessions on bargaining or organizing issues. These types of strategic alliances

between labor and management were much more common in Las Vegas’s casino

industry during the decade than pitched political battles exemplified by the fights with

the MGM Grand, The Frontier, and the Santa Fe (Wilhelm, 2004, Alexander, 2005).

Throughout the 1990s the Culinary Union and its parent HERE cooperated

with casino operators on a number of issues, perhaps the most notable being the

National Gambling Impact Study. The study was the final product of a commission

appointed by the Clinton administration in 1997 to study the social and economic

impacts of legalized gambling. The commission consisted of a nine-member panel

that consisted of both gaming advocates and opponents. HERE International president
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John Wilhelm was appointed to be on the panel as one of the gaming industries’

advocates (Weinert, 1999). Prior to becoming the president of HERE, John Wilhelm

served as an official for the Culinary Union in a variety of capacities. Another gaming

industry advocate who was appointed to the panel was MGM Chairman Terrence

Lanni, with whom HERE president John Wilhelm cooperated closely (Wilhelm,

2004). As a panelist, Wilhelm focused on how the gaming industry benefited local

economies by creating new jobs that tended to compensate workers better, both in

terms of wages and benefits pay, than other low-skilled service sector jobs (Weinert,

1999). The commission’s final report was received favorably by the casino industry

and included Wilhelm’s arguments about the benefits of gaming for job creation.

Many in the casino industry voiced gratitude for Wilhelm’s involvement in the study

(Batt, 1999).

In addition to working with the Gaming Industry on the National Gambling

Impact Study, the Culinary Union and its parent HERE cooperated with the casino

operators on a variety of other issues. For example, together they successfully lobbied

the federal government for infrastructure improvements that would increase the

accessibly of Las Vegas for tourists. Such improvements included the expansion of

Las Vegas’s airport and the widening of I-15, the main thoroughfare used by those

living in and around Los Angeles to travel to Las Vegas (Alexander, 2005).

HERE has also cooperated with friendly Casino operators in helping them get

gaming licenses in new gaming jurisdictions as well as lobbying with casino interests

to prevent local and state lawmakers from raising taxes on casinos. HERE’s help in

new gaming jurisdictions was especially useful for casino operators because their

operations had historically been limited to Nevada and New Jersey, so they had not

developed relationships with political leaders in jurisdictions that were considering the

legalization of casino-style gaming. Furthermore, many of the areas the were

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considering relaxing their gaming laws are areas where HERE already had a

significant presence, meaning that the union had precisely the kinds of political

relationships with local political leaders that the casino operators desired (Alexander,

2002).

The Culinary Academy

In addition to cooperating in the political sphere, the Culinary Union had

cooperated with casino operators in a variety of other areas. Perhaps the most notable

example of labor-management cooperation outside of the political sphere is the

Culinary Training Academy. The Culinary Academy was established in 1993 by a

consortium of gaming employers and the Culinary Union to provide job training for

hospitality workers in Las Vegas. The Culinary Academy provides training to

individuals looking for their first casino jobs as well as current casino employees

hoping to upgrade their skills. In addition to courses aimed specifically at the gaming

industry, the Culinary Academy also offers ESL, GED, and variety of soft skills

classes (Bernhardt et. al., 2003).

The Culinary Academy graduates an average of 2,500 people each year, and a

total of 16,000 people have graduated from the academy since its inception (Bernhardt

et. al., 2003; Greenhouse, 2004). The Culinary Academy works with the casino

operators to ensure that graduates are first in line for new casino jobs. Seventy percent

of Culinary Academy Graduates have found jobs in Las Vegas’s gaming industry

(Bernhardt et. al., 2003). This placement rate is especially impressive because the

Culinary Academy acts as one of Clark County’s primary vocational rehabilitation

facilities, training some of the county’s least employable residents (Pappageorge,

2005).

The academy is funded through a combination of employer contributions and

government grants. Each employer’s contribution is determined by the collective

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bargaining agreements they hold with the Culinary Union. In 2002 employers

contributed 3.5 cents per hour worked per employee (Bernhardt et. al., 2003).

The Culinary Academy is of value to casino operators for a variety of reasons.

First, it helped to allay the recruitment and retention problems that Las Vegas casino

employers faced during the dramatic expansion of the city’s gaming industry in the

1990s. The academy helped relieve casino employers’ recruitment problems by

giving previously unqualified individuals the job skills necessary to enter the casino

industry, thereby increasing the pool of workers from which casino employers could

hire. Furthermore, the Culinary Academy helped to create job ladders within the

gaming industry, thereby addressing casino employers’ retention problems, and the

turnover rate amongst academy graduates was 50% lower than among of the street

hires (Bernhardt et. al., 2003).

Casino operators also valued the Culinary Academy because it successfully

addressed structural problems within the local gaming industry that discouraged

gaming operators from setting up their own training facilities individually. For

example, since casino employees’ skills are highly transferable, and there is a high

turnover rate in the industry, it is not beneficial for casino operators to invest

significant resources in the training of their employees, as it is relatively easy for one

gaming operator to poach the trained employees of another operator. This problem is

especially acute in Las Vegas because of the high-end nature of the most of Las

Vegas’s largest casinos and the shortage of qualified workers. The Culinary Union

was able to help resolve this problem, making employer contributions to the Culinary

Academy part of the collective bargaining agreement it has with each operator, thus

preventing one or a number of casino operators from free riding off the training efforts

of the other casino operators (Bernhardt et. al., 2003).

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The Culinary Academy has also been beneficial to the Culinary Union. For

example, because it is primarily administered by the Culinary Union, the Culinary

Academy offers potential members a vivid example of the services the local can

provide for them. This is especially important because the Culinary Academy is often

the first contact these individuals have with the Culinary Union, enabling the local to

leave a positive first impression with these potential members free from employer

interference. Several studies have shown that this type of initial impression has a

strong positive correlation with members’ union commitment and participation. This

correlation remains significant at least ten years from when an individual initially

comes into contact with the union (Clark, 2000). This is also important because

Nevada is a right-to-work state, meaning that the Culinary Union must be able to

convince the workers it represents that the services it provides are valuable enough for

them to pay their union dues.

Contract Negotiations in the 1990s

There were two rounds of negotiations that took place in the 1990s; although

both were characterized by a high degree of rank-and-file mobilization and highly

public demonstration, they were overall much less antagonistic than any of the

previous rounds of negotiations that had occurred over the last 15 years. In fact, the

1994 and 1997 rounds of negotiations were the first consecutive rounds of

negotiations to be completed without a work stoppage since the 1960s. The fact that

these negotiations could be completed relatively conflict-free during a period of

dramatic change in Las Vegas’s gaming industry and in the midst of pitched battles

between the Culinary Union and the operators of the MGM Grand, The Frontier, and

Santa Fe casinos, demonstrates the positive relationship the Culinary Union had with

most of Las Vegas’s casino operators at the time.

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The unresolved disputes between the Culinary Union and the MGM and

Frontier Casinos, as well as the issue of subcontracting, were the primary issues in the

1994 round of contract negotiations. Largely as a result of the uncertainty created by

the ongoing battle between the Culinary Union and the Frontier and MGM, casino

operators wanted a shorter, three-year contract, as opposed to the five-year agreements

that had become the norm. The union prepared for the 1994 round of negotiations

much in the same way it had prepared for earlier rounds of negotiations. Using the

steward structure that was already in place, the union built a large representative

bargaining committee that acted as a means through the union could train,

communicate with, and mobilize the rank-and-file. The union then mobilized workers

to engage in a variety of rank-and-file intensive leverage tactics designed to put

pressure on casino owners to settle with the union and signal the local’s willingness

and ability to strike. Examples of such tactics included holding several rallies

involving thousands of workers and mobilizing for mass meetings with upper-level

management to discuss specific bargaining issues.

Similar to 1989, Steve Wynn, of Mirage Resorts, was the first casino operator

to settle with the Culinary Union, and most other casino operators agreed to contracts

patterned after this first one. The new contract language granted casino operators

broad leeway in their ability to subcontract; however, it mandated that all new

subcontracted work be done by union members under the Culinary Union’s collective

bargaining agreement. The settlement also provided for 25 cents an hour in raises

each year, a continuation of organizing neutrality language for any new properties

acquired or opened by the operators, and the preservation of no-cost health insurance

for workers and their families.

There were two properties that initially resisted settling with the Culinary

Union on terms similar to those agreed by the other gaming operators: the Sheraton-
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Desert Inn and the Sahara. The Sahara Casino was owned by the Sahara Gaming

Corp., along with the Santa Fe. The Sahara Gaming Corp.’s resistance to the

settlement probably was the result of the same strategy to minimize the influence of

unions in the company’s operations that had led to its concurrent battle with the

Culinary Union at the Santa Fe casino. The Sheraton-Inn resisted the 1994 settlement

largely because it had hoped to emulate the Frontier and MGM casinos and operate

along the Strip non-union.

The Culinary Union eventually forced a settlement based on the pattern

agreement with the Sheraton-Desert Inn by delaying the ability of the operators to get

permits to develop new casino properties. The Culinary Union was soon able to get a

pattern contract at the Sahara as well, as a result of its corporate campaign against the

Sahara Gaming Corp. By the time the 1994 round of negotiations were wrapping up

the corporate campaign elements of the Culinary Union organizing campaign at the

Santa Fe casino were really beginning to take their toll on the Sahara Gaming Corp.

As a result of the campaign the gaming operator desperately needed to increase its

cash flow to finance its debt burden. Therefore, the casino operator sold the Sahara

Casino to union-friendly Bill Bennett of Circus-Circus Enterprises, who promptly

agreed to a contract patterned after the Mirage settlement.

The Culinary Union and casino operators entered the 1997 negotiations facing

many of the same issues that they had faced in the previous round of negotiations. Key

issues in the 1997 negotiations were wages, subcontracting, health and welfare

benefits, pensions, and contract length (Caruso, 1997). Casinos wanted an annual 25

cents an hour increase, while the union wanted more. In addition, casino operators

wanted union members to begin contributing to their healthcare, which the union

steadfastly resisted (Caruso, 1997). The Culinary Union also demanded that strict

language limiting subcontracting be added to the contracts. Finally, the Culinary

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Union and management disagreed over the length of their contract. Casino operators

favored a shorter contract because of the rapidly changing nature of Las Vegas’s

gaming industry, while union officials wanted a longer contract so they could have

more time for external organizing between rounds of negotiations, allowing them to

dedicate more resources to this area of activity (Smith, 1997).

The 1997 negotiations were a long, drawn-out process, with some Culinary

Union members having to work up to year without a contract. Culinary Union

officials did not blame this so much on the intractability of either the union’s or

management’s bargaining positions as much as on the ongoing Frontier Strike and the

failure of the Culinary Union to reach a settlement on a first contract covering MGM

Grand employees. These factors introduced a significant degree of uncertainty into

the bargaining process and therefore casino operators did not want to settle on a new

contract until these two disputes were resolved. Culinary Union officials also blamed

the delay to reach a settlement on the insistence of each casino operator to bargain

separately (Smith, 1997).

The Culinary Union reached agreements with the major Strip operators in

March 1998, more than 9 months after their previous contract expired. These

agreements set the pattern for the rest of the agreements along the strip (Smith,

1998a). Other Strip operators soon settled, and downtown operators, after some initial

grumbling that the decline of gaming in downtown Las Vegas was making it difficult

for them afford contracts patterned after Strip agreements, also settled with the

Culinary Union within the next couple of months.

The new contracts included strict restrictions on subcontracting; they also

maintained the Culinary Union’s fully funded family health benefit package. The

Culinary union was also able to get the five-year contract that it wanted. However, the
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local did have to compromise on the pay issue, agreeing to 25-cent retroactive raises

for 1997, 30 cents for 1998 and 1999, and 35 cents in 2000 and 2001 (Smith, 1998).

Changes in Casino Industry Workforce Demographics during the 1990s

Hispanics had become the dominant ethnic group within the Culinary Union’s

membership by 1990s. In Las Vegas’s casino industry they had replaced African-

Americans as the most prominent ethnical/racial group in the less-skilled back-of-the-

house occupations, such as GRAs and housemen. (Waddoups & Eade, 2002,

Pappageorge, 2003) Furthermore, these particular back-of-the-house occupational

categories were making up an increasingly significant proportion of the Culinary

Union’s total membership as larger and larger casino resorts were built during the

1990s. Furthermore, because these job categories were traditionally dominated by

women, their disproportionate growth caused the Culinary Union’s membership to

become increasingly dominated by women.

As a result of these changes the Culinary Union had to adopt an organizational

model that was equipped to serve its increasingly diverse membership. Although the

Culinary Union has had minorities on staff since the days of Al Bramlett, the local’s

leadership structure had always been dominated by white males. Beginning in the late

1980s the union began making a concerted effort to hire more minorities on staff and

to ensure it had a more diverse leadership structure. By the time of the 2002 contract

campaign, the Culinary Union had a white male Secretary-Treasurer, Latina female

President, and an African-American female vice-president. Furthermore, the union

had a staff that reflected the diversity of its membership, rather than consisting of just

a few token minorities.

Besides having a staff and leadership that was reflective of its membership, the

Culinary Union pursued a number of other strategies that made its organizational

culture more reflective of its diverse membership, along with the staff and leadership
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changes. For example, all union materials are written in both English and Spanish,

and all speeches at union events are translated into either language depending on the

language of the speaker. Furthermore, the union pursued political initiatives that are

in tune with its diverse membership, such as campaigning for the reform of

immigration laws. On a variety of occasions the union has acted to protect older

female front-of-the-house workers, such as cocktail waitresses, when they have faced

age discrimination.

The ability of the Culinary Union to adapt to the changing demographics of its

membership is a key part of its revitalization process. As Behrens et al. (2004) noted,

a key component of revitalization is a labor organization’s ability to adjust to new

contexts and support new strategies. Therefore, the Culinary Union’s ability to adapt

to the dramatic influx of Hispanic and female workers into the casino industry

workforce in the 1980s and 1990s was a key part of its revitalization process. Without

being able to make the organizational changes necessary to appeal to its increasingly

diverse membership, the Culinary Union would not be able to draw upon the power it

gains from mobilizing such a large proportion of its members (Pappageorge, 2005).

Revitalization of the Culinary Union since in the 1990s and Current Practices

By the end of the 1990s, the Culinary Union had made significant strides in its

revitalization process, which created the organizational capabilities necessary for its

2002 comprehensive contract campaign strategy. As Bronfenbrenner and Juravich

(2001) argued in their chapter on the USWA’s contract campaigns in the late 1980s

and early 1990s, a union’s capacity to engage in effective comprehensive contract

campaigns takes years to develop. Furthermore, Bronfenbrenner and Juravich argue

that contract campaigns are most effective if they are well integrated into the structure

of the local, in terms of both technical expertise and organizational commitment. This

commitment and expertise must exist not only amongst the union’s leadership and
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staff but also amongst its rank-and-file. Correspondingly, as a result of the

revitalization process it went through in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Culinary Union

developed the organizational capacity to effectively employ ambitious comprehensive

campaign strategies as well as retain the organizational commitment necessary to

successfully mount such campaigns.

The preceding sections of this chapter also described how the Culinary Union,

as part of its revitalization process, successfully adopted the kinds of internal reforms

necessary to adapt to changes in Las Vegas’s casino industry, such as changes in the

kinds of employers that predominated in Las Vegas and demographic changes in the

casino industry workforce. This section will describe the status of these reforms as

they stood in the years immediately preceding the 2002 contract campaign and their

impact on that year’s comprehensive contract campaign.

The Culinary Union’s revitalization process was comprehensive,

encompassing the local’s contract administration, contract bargaining, external

organization and political functions. Furthermore, revitalization in each one of these

areas contributed to the revitalization process in the others as well, thereby increasing

the Culinary Union’s overall power in the local casino industry. As Hickey (2003),

Benz (2005), and Katz et al. (2003) argued, unions can benefit from integrating their

strategies in a mutually reinforcing manner, and such integration has a significant

positive effect on the union revitalization process. This section will describe the

Culinary Union’s contract administration, contract bargaining, external organizing,

and political strategies in the years leading up to the 2002 negotiations. It will also

discuss the complementary impact of these practices and strategies on each other and

the overall functioning of the union.

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Contract Administration

The Culinary Union’s contract administration functions form the foundation of

the rest of the local’s activities in contract bargaining, external organizing, and

politics. Contract administration is most closely linked to contract bargaining because

both are part of a union’s collective bargaining and representational functions.

Therefore, the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy prior to 2002 was

fundamentally linked to its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign. For example, the

Culinary Union used its contract administration procedures to recruit rank-and-file

activists to lead the campaign as well as to communicate with members about the

campaign’s progress. Therefore, the Culinary Union’s contract administration

strategies and practices in the period preceding the 2002 comprehensive contract

campaign played an integral role in helping the union develop the capacity to launch

such an ambitious campaign. This section will describe the Culinary Union’s contract

administration strategies and practices and their influence on the 2002 comprehensive

contract campaign.

The contract administration strategy developed by the Culinary Union as a

result of its revitalization process is similar to the one described by Teresa Cornrow

(1991). As described in the literature review, Cornrow’s article outlines a contract

administration strategy that emphasized rank-and-file membership involvement and

responsibility. This model also prioritizes collective rather than individual grievances

and methods for resolving workplace issues. It further stresses the importance of

developing rank-and-file empowerment in the workplace through collective action.

The role of union staff in this model is to facilitate the ability of stewards and

other rank-and-file union members to take more responsibility over the grievance

process, rather than resolving workplace issues for members. Union staff should also

train members not just in the practical skills of how to resolve workplace issues, but
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also how to do so in a collective manner, empowering rank-and-file members in the

process (Cornrow, 1991). Finally, Cornrow’s model stresses the important role

contract administration process plays as a communications conduit between union

staff and leaders and the rank-and-file membership.

The following paragraphs provide a detailed description of the Culinary Union

contract administration procedures and strategies. They will first describe the local’s

strategy for handling grievances and its representational structure. Then the impact of

the Culinary Union contract administration strategy on its rank-and-file mobilization

capabilities in the 2002 contract negotiations will be discussed.

The Culinary Union’s grievance procedure emphasizes organizing and

collectively dealing with grievances. In order to do this it must first identify

grievances around which the union can organize and where it is in the local’s strategic

interest to do so. The first step in this process is distinguishing between grievances

that are individual issues and those that are group issues (Pappageorge, 2005).

The Culinary Union handles individual grievances in a traditional manner

through a three-step process. In the first step, the shop steward meets with the

frontline supervisor to try work out the grievance informally. The Culinary Union has

delegated responsibility for this first step almost entirely to the shop steward. Paid

staff only become directly involved in the grievance process at the second level, where

grievances are brought before a committee consisting of equal numbers of union and

management representatives. If this committee deadlocks then the grievance goes to

arbitration (Caesars Palace Contract, 2002 2007, Mirage Contract, 2002 2007).

This shortened grievance process delegates significant amounts of

responsibility for handling grievances to shop stewards. Therefore, one of the major

duties of internal organizers in this process is to make sure shop stewards have

sufficient training necessary to handle grievances at their initial stages competently

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and to provide them with help where necessary. It is also important that the union

maintain a sufficient ratio of shop stewards to regular members. The union’s goal is to

have one shop steward for every 20 members; however, at the time of the 2002

contract negotiations the union had about one shop steward for every 25 members

(Pappageorge, 2005).

However, when dealing with group grievances, the Culinary Union first makes

a determination of whether it will try to mobilize workers around the grievance or not.

The union looks to a number of factors in making this determination, such as the type

and number and workers affected by the grievance, what kind of leverage the union

will gain by mobilizing workers around the grievance, and the intensity of worker

feeling regarding the grievance. The union will always pursues a grievance through

the traditional channels even if it decides to mobilize workers around it as well.

If the Culinary Union decides to mobilize around a grievance, the shop

steward, usually with the help of an internal organizer, will organize the affected

workers into a group, which then goes to the immediate supervisor to demand a

meeting to work out the grievance. If the supervisor will not sit down with the

workers, an internal organizer will try to mobilize as large a group of workers as

possible to march down to the supervisor’s office in a controlled but militant manner

and again demand a meeting. If this does not work the organizer will mobilize

workers for other coordinated marches on management officials up the casino’s chain

of command, until they find someone who will work with them on the issue.

Eventually one of the managers higher up in the casino’s hierarchy will usually put

pressure on one of the supervisors below him/her to resolve the issue. In addition to

these delegations to management, the union will use a variety of other tactics when

mobilizing around grievances such as EDR rallies, having button or ribbon days, and
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other types of solidarity efforts. The union negotiates specific provisions in its

contracts with casinos in order to protect its ability to engage in such actions.

One of problems that the Culinary Union has faced in implementing this

contract administration policy is that it significantly increases the workload of internal

organizers. This is because training shop stewards to handle grievances and

mobilizing workers around them is much more time-consuming for internal organizers

than just dealing with grievances in a more traditional manner. This problem is

compounded by the large amount of resources the Culinary Union dedicates to

external organizing, which prevents the local from hiring more paid staff to handle the

additional contract administration burdens. Under the current contract administration

structure, each internal organizer is responsible for overseeing 75-100 shop stewards

and 1500-2000 workers (Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

The Culinary Union has created a lead shop steward system in order to remedy

this issue and give rank-and-file leaders greater opportunity to hold positions of

responsibility in the union. Lead shop stewards are basically regular shop stewards

who agree to oversee about 3-5 other shop stewards, who are in turn expected to be

responsible for groups of around 25 workers. These oversight responsibilities include

shop steward training, regularly communicating with stewards about union business,

and being the first person regular stewards go to with their questions. Lead shop

stewards also help internal organizers identify and recruit rank-and-file leaders. The

union tries to give lead stewards a sense of ownership in the union such as giving them

a part in the decision making, direction, and goal setting of the union in their shop.

After a number of previous failed attempts, the Culinary Union instituted a lead shop

steward program in early 2001 in preparation for the 2002 contract negotiations

(Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

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In order to ensure its shop stewards have the adequate skills necessary to

handle their responsibilities competently, the Culinary Union has set up an extensive

training program for its shop stewards. This training program mixes regular classes

with mentor-style teaching in which trainees work closely with internal organizers and

lead shop stewards. This training is mandatory for all shop stewards, and if trainees

refuse to complete the training they lose their shop steward responsibilities (Dalton,

2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Henry, 2005, Pappageorge, 2005).

Under the Culinary Union’s contract administration structure, shop stewards

are not elected but rather are recruited by internal organizers and other shop stewards.

The Culinary Union’s internal organizing director, Ted Pappageorge, said that the

local pursued this strategy because it wanted to ensure that all of its shop stewards had

workplace leadership capabilities. In other words, the local recruits shop stewards that

it has identified as natural or indigenous leaders in the particular worksite or among

various other constituencies such as a particular gender, ethnic, occupational, or racial

group. Generally, these are people to whom other workers already look to resolve

workplace problems. Examples of leadership behaviors include organizing co-

workers to come down to the union hall to discuss a work issue, organizing co-

workers to meet with management over an issue, organizing co-workers to participate

in events, especially of a union or political nature. If individuals exhibiting such overt

behaviors are unavailable in a particular worksite, the union will look for people to

whom co-workers defer in the resolution of, or in forming an opinion about,

workplace issues (Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

In order to identify and recruit workplace leaders the Culinary Union maintains

an extensive database of instances where workers have demonstrated workplace

leadership qualities. One of the primary activities of shop stewards and internal

organizers is to identify these types of workplace leaders. Once a leader has been
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identified, an internal organizer, accompanied by a shop steward, will visit the

individual at home to assess their attitude toward the union and to recruit for a position

as a shop steward or some other active role in the local (Pappageorge, 2003,

Pappageorge, 2005).

By recruiting individuals that have already demonstrated workplace leadership

qualities, the Culinary Union is able to tap into and leverage existing relationships,

leadership roles, and lines of communication between workers, instead of having to try

to create new ones. By doing this the union hopes to take advantage of organic social

networks between workers, union activists and non-activists alike. Rank-and-file

members tend to take union issues more seriously if they hear about them through

existing social networks rather than through communication networks created

specifically for dealing with union issues (Clark, 2000). The role of union issues in

these networks waxes and wanes, but the networks themselves tend to be relatively

stable even where job turnover is a significant factor. The organic aspects of these

networks also means that union affairs tend to become intertwined with other aspects

of members’ daily lives, such as friendships in and out of work. As hypothesized by

Bacharach et al. (2001), this process helps to legitimize the union in the eyes of its

members and increase membership commitment to and participation in the union.

Unlike leaders of business organizations, shop stewards receive relatively little

formal power from their position within a union’s organizational structure. Therefore,

shop stewards must rely upon on informal sources of power such as the respect and

support of their co-workers (Barling et. al, 1992). This is especially true in the case of

the Culinary Union, where the local deemphasizes legalistic procedures in the

resolution of grievances, and instead organizes around grievances, taking advantage of

informal power structures in the workplace.

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In addition to building upon existent social networks, the Culinary Union’s

contract administration strategy has a positive effect on the local’s rank-and-file

mobilization capacity in a variety of other ways. For example, as described in the

literature review, organizational behavior scholars have found a strong positive

correlation between contract administration procedures that facilitate and promote

rank-and-file responsibility in the grievance process and increased union commitment.

These scholars have also found strong links between contract administration

procedures that emphasize collective means of resolving workplace issues and

increased rank-and-file participation and commitment. Furthermore, a similar

correlation has been found between procedures that emphasize worker empowerment

and union commitment and participation (Fosh, 1993, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich,

1995, Tetrick, 1995, Bacharach et. al., 2001, Snape & Redman, 2004a, Snape &

Redman, 2004b). As described in the preceding paragraphs, the Culinary Union’s

organizing-model-based contract administration strategy contains all of these

correlates of increased union commitment and participation.

In addition, the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy increases its

rank-and-file mobilization capacity in a variety of other ways as well. For example, it

gives rank-and-file leaders experience in organizing their co-workers and in leading

the types of rank-and-file mobilization tactics that were commonly used in the 2002

contract campaign, such as delegations to management and break room rallies.

Furthermore, regular rank-and-file members got used to participating in these tactics

as well as hearing from rank-and-file leaders about union issues. This built members’

confidence about using these tactics to exercise their workplace rights (Dalton, 2003,

Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

Furthermore, this contract administration strategy helped the Culinary Union

build an effective communications structure based on face-to-face contact and

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personal relationships. This helped union leaders and staff get a better understanding

of what issues are important to rank-and-file members, as well as members’ attitudes

about the union and their employer. It also helped union leaders develop an

understanding of the informal power structures that were present in the members’

workplace. In addition, such an effective communication network also helped

members get a better understanding of what was at stake in the contract negotiations

process and why their participation was so important. It also helped the union get its

message out to members during the negotiations and undermine the ability of

employers to convince members of their position in the negotiations (Dalton, 2003,

Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

Politics

The Culinary Union’s political program also had a positive influence on the

local’s rank-and-file mobilization capacity for the 2002 contract negotiations. In

addition to increasing the mobilization capacity of Culinary Union members, as a

result of its political program. the Culinary Union was recognized as an important

force in state and local politics, which made it easier for the union to get the support of

politicians in the 2002 contract campaign. Finally, the Culinary Union’s progressive

political agenda helped it win the support of the public in the negotiations, especially

in regard to its campaign around workload issues.

The Culinary Union’s political program emphasizes member involvement.

Instead of making monetary contributions to political candidates, the local focuses

more on door-to-door get-out-the-vote tactics. The Culinary Union does not have a

separate political action committee; rather it utilizes its shop steward committee for its

political program, meaning the many stewards are either involved in the get-out-the-

vote drives directly or recruit other rank-and-file volunteers for these efforts. In

addition the union has a leave of absence program where rank-and-file members take
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time off from work in order to work on political campaigns full time. The Culinary

Union even has a few rank-and-file leaders, that it has recruited, serving in the state

legislature.

The Culinary Union’s political program is relevant to the union rank-and-file

mobilization for the 2002 contract campaign because it created yet another way for

rank-and-file members to become directly involved in the local’s activities in the years

prior to the negotiations. This further cultivates a culture within the local where

membership participation is encouraged, with all the previously discussed benefits this

entails for the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization capacity. Additionally, the

local’s political program creates another venue through which shop stewards and other

rank-and-file leaders can communicate with regular members about union issues,

thereby strengthening the Culinary Union’s organizational communications network

and opening up another avenue for rank-and-file members to talk about union affairs.

Furthermore, the local’s political program provides rank-and-file leaders with

organizing experience that would be valuable in the 2002 contract campaign. Finally,

as mentioned earlier, the Culinary Union’s political program also includes organizing

around specific policy issues that are important to the union’s diverse membership

such as immigrant rights. This helps build union commitment amongst the local’s

diverse membership and demonstrates to these members how the union can be

relevant to them both in and outside of the workplace.

External Organizing

The Culinary Union’s external organizing strategy related to its rank-and-rile

mobilization efforts for the 2002 contract campaign in many of the same ways as its

political program. For example, the Culinary Union also promotes the involvement of

rank-and-file leaders in its external organizing campaign. One way this is done is

through a leave of absence program that is similar to the one the local runs for its
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political program. The Culinary Union’s external organizing leave of absence

program allows rank-and-file leaders take up to three months from their job at any one

time to come onto the local’s staff as an organizer. As an external organizer they will

either work on organizing non-union casinos in Las Vegas or they will work on

campaigns in other parts of the country as part of HERE’s “Road Warrior Program.”

In addition to the leave of absence program, the union recruits rank-and-file leaders to

accompany external organizers on house visits. Lastly, the Culinary Union will

organize rank-and-file leaders to have lunch together at a non-union casino that is an

organizing target of the Culinary Union, so they can talk to workers at the targeted

casino about the union (Pappageorge, 2005).

These kinds of tactics benefited the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file

mobilization capacity for the 2002 contract campaign in a variety of ways. First, it

gave rank-and-file leaders experience in leading their fellow workers in the kinds of

collectivist confrontation tactics that were commonly used in the 2002 contract

campaign, such as mobilizing workers for rallies both in and outside of the workplace.

Furthermore, as a result of talking to non-union workers, especially those in areas

where the hospitality and/or casino industries are largely non-union and therefore

employment conditions are much worse, rank-and-file leaders became much more

aware of the benefits that accrue to them as a result of working in a union facility,

thereby increasing their commitment to the union. Union representation has been

found to be strongly correlated with both higher wages and a higher percentage of

employees with health insurance and pensions in both the hotel and gaming industries.

The difference in wages and benefits between union and non-union establishments is

especially pronounced in areas of low-union density. In areas of high union density in

the hotel and/or gaming industries, non-union employers often improve overall

compensation so it matches union standards (Waddoups & Eade, 2002). The Culinary
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Union’s “Road Warriors” program often sends union members to areas of very low

union density, such as Indian reservation casinos, that are usually entirely non-union

and have abysmal labor conditions.

Contract Bargaining

As discussed in prior sections of this chapter, during the late 1980s and into the

1990s the Culinary Union also experienced a revitalization within in its contract

bargaining sphere of activity. Although member mobilization did play a role in the

1984 strike, the local did not really begin to think of it in terms of a wider

comprehensive campaign strategy until it began to prepare for its 1989 round of

bargaining. It was in its preparations for the 1989 round that the Culinary Union

developed a set of corporate pressure tactics that it coordinated with its rank-and-file

mobilization tactics. It is also in this campaign where the local made a conscious

effort to build rank-and-file bargaining committees in each casino and developed rank-

and-file leaders. Throughout the 1990s the Culinary Union continued to develop its

capacities in these two areas. This is what enabled the union to successfully carry out

its ambitious comprehensive contract campaign strategy in 2002 (Rothman, 2002a,

Wilhelm 2004, Benz 2005).

The rank-and-file mobilization component of the union’s comprehensive

contract campaigns consists of building large representative rank-and-file bargaining

committees, rank-and-file leadership identification and recruitment, large rallies and

marches, and utilizing innovative inside the workplace mobilization and pressure

tactics. Between the 1989 round of negotiations and the 2002 round of negotiations

the Culinary Union went through two additional rounds of negotiations. It was

through the experiences gained by leaders and the rank-and-file in these prior rounds

of negotiations that the Culinary Union developed the capacity to successfully carry

out its ambitious 2002 comprehensive campaign. Not only did the local learn how to
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better use the rank-and-file mobilization tactics that are now part of its comprehensive

contract campaigns, these earlier experiences also allowed the union to develop the

organizational structure necessary for the effective use of these tactics. For example,

each comprehensive campaign between 1989 and 2002 led to increased levels of rank-

and-file participation in the union. More specifically, although rank-and-file

participation peaked during each round negotiations, after the negotiations

participation stabilized at a level higher than it had been before the negotiations

(Pappageorge, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005).

As a result of its revitalization process the Culinary Union also gained

expertise in corporate campaign tactics. The union began to experiment with these

tactics in the late 1980s as part of its 1989 comprehensive contract campaign as well

as to enforce its 1984 contract. The union has regularly used these tactics in its

contract administration, external organizing, and political efforts as well as in its

comprehensive campaigns. Corporate pressure tactics played an important supporting

role in the 2002 contract campaign.

The Culinary Union’s efforts in this area would not have been nearly as

effective in 2002 if the local had not already begun to develop its capacity in this area

in prior years. For example, during the 1990s the Culinary Union learned how to

pressure casino operators through their relationships with a variety of stakeholders

such as creditors, travel agents, investors, and potential business partners. In this

period, the Culinary Union, through its research department, cultivated close

relationships with these stakeholders. Therefore, by 2002, it had developed good

working relationships with a variety of stakeholders in Las Vegas’s casino industry.

These relationships helped the Culinary Union get its message out to these

stakeholders during the contract campaign. The Culinary Union’s 2002 contract

campaign strategy relied on its ability to effectively relay to the relevant stakeholders
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the extent to which it had mobilized its members for the negotiations, and the

likelihood of a costly strike if a deal could not be reached. The Culinary Union’s goal

was to get other stakeholders to put pressure on casino operators to settle on terms that

were favorable to the union. Therefore, the ability to effectively carry out the

corporate campaign aspects of the 2002 comprehensive contract campaign was

integral to the Culinary Union’s overall success in these negotiations. The local

developed this capacity, in part, through its previous comprehensive contract

campaigns, beginning with the 1989 round of negotiations.

Conclusion

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s the Culinary Union underwent

a revitalizing process, which ultimately enabled it to successfully pursue an ambitious

comprehensive contract campaign strategy such as the one the local used in the 2002

round of contract negotiations. For example, during this period the Culinary Union

developed external and internal organizing capabilities that were of significant benefit

to the local during the 2002 round of negotiations. The Culinary Union developed

representative rank-and-file committees in each of the casino properties that facilitated

rank-and-file mobilization, leadership recruitment, and communication between the

union and its members. By 2002 the rank-and-file leaders that were developed

through these committees formed the bulk of the Culinary Union’s staff and

leadership. In fact, both of the union members that serve in the state legislature were

recruited through these rank-and-file committees. The committees also enabled the

union to implement its innovative contract administration strategies, which further

developed its ability to mobilize its members.

The union’s external organizing campaigns also contributed to the Culinary

Union’s 2002 contract campaign efforts. First, many of the mobilization tactics that

the union used in its external organizing campaigns, such as the ones at the MGM
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Grand and the Santa Fe, were similar to the ones used in collective bargaining, such as

building representative rank-and-file committees, mobilizing workers for large rallies,

and using smaller scale rank-and-file pressure tactics such as the ones mentioned in

the previous paragraph. By the time of the 2002 negotiations, the union had gained a

lot of experience mobilizing members for huge rallies and demonstrations involving

thousands of workers, as well as other types of pressure tactics involving small groups

of workers, such as delegations to management and break room rallies. Secondly,

these organizing efforts enabled the union to maintain density in an industry that was

growing dramatically, thereby preventing it from being marginalized and weakened at

the bargaining table. At the time of the 2002 contract negotiations, the Culinary

Union’s membership had swelled to more than 45,000.

Furthermore, the Culinary Union’s ability to defeat repeated attempts by casino

operators in the 1980s and early 1990s demonstrated to casino operators the risks of

provoking a conflict with the Culinary Union. The Frontier and the Sahara Gaming

Corp. had lost their gaming businesses in Las Vegas entirely as a result of conflicts

with Culinary Union; and the Boyd Group, Binion’s Horseshoe, and the MGM had

suffered significant losses at the hands of the Culinary Union. During the 2002

contract negotiations the Culinary Union repeatedly invoked the losses incurred in

these previous labor battles when encouraging nervous casino investors to put pressure

on management to settle with the local.

The union’s political efforts during the late 1980s through the 1990s also aided

the local in its 2002 contract fight by earning allies amongst public officials, who put

pressure on casino operators to settle with the union. In the 15 years leading up to the

negotiations the union had put together an increasingly effective electoral machine that

was able to lend significant help to allied political officials as well as get its own

members and staff elected into public office. The union was also very effective in
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punishing the supporters of its opponents, for example, contributing to the upset defeat

of Sue Lowden, the wife of the owner of the Sahara Gaming Corp, in her state senate

reelection campaign.

The union also developed extensive corporate campaign experience during its

battles with casino operators in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result the union had a well

trained staff prepared for the 2002 campaign, with extensive experience developing

effective strategies to put pressure on casino operators. Furthermore, the union’s

research staff had developed relationships with the investment community, which

increased their ability to convince them to put pressure on gaming operators to settle

with the union.

Finally, through its previous fifteen years of experience the union learned how

to coordinate activities across its three primary spheres of activity: politics, external

organizing and collective bargaining. For example, by bargaining for neutrality with

the corporate casino operators the Culinary Union ensured that it could maintain

density and, therefore, its leverage at the bargaining table, during a period of rapid

growth in the industry. Furthermore, the union’s campaign against MGM

demonstrated how the union successfully used political strategies to prevent the

expansion of MGM to new gaming jurisdictions, eventually forcing it to agree to card-

check neutrality with the union. Therefore, the Culinary Union’s contract

administration, external organizing, contract bargaining, and political strategies all

contributed to the union’s capacity to successfully pursue its ambitious 2002

comprehensive contract campaign strategy. The revitalization of the local in all four

of these core areas of activity was the foundation on which its comprehensive contract

campaign was founded. If the transformation of the union capabilities in just one of

these areas had been lacking it would have significantly undermined the union’s

ability to carry out such an ambitious campaign so effectively.

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This case study is different from most other case studies of the comprehensive

contract campaigns because the Culinary Union had already gone through an extensive

revitalization process by the time the 2002 contract negotiations were underway.

Without having gone through this revitalization process the Culinary Union’s capacity

to launch such an ambitious comprehensive campaign in 2002 would have been

significantly diminished. As mentioned in the literature review, most other analyses

of comprehensive campaigns involve newly revitalized locals that lack the

organizational capacities of the Culinary Union or, alternatively, lack a historical

analysis of the local under study. Therefore, when analyzing the Culinary Union’s

2002 campaign strategy it is important to look at the history of the union as well as the

local industry because this history played a very influential role in determining the

Culinary Union’s strategic choices in the campaign as well as the effectiveness of the

tactics employed. It would be impossible to have a proper accounting of the 2002

contract campaign if these historical factors and current practices were ignored.
Chapter VI: Contract Campaign Strategy

Introduction

The strategy pursued by the Culinary Union in its 2002 contract campaign was

designed to exert pressure on casino operators on multiple fronts. The strategy's

foundation was a rank-and-file mobilization campaign upon which most of the other

contract campaign tactics relied for their effectiveness. The union's rank-and-file

mobilization campaign was focused around a large bargaining committee made up of

rank-and-file leaders drawn from almost every shift in each department in each of the

casinos with contracts up for negotiation. The Culinary Union utilized this committee

to mobilize rank-and-file members for a number of large rallies and demonstrations as

well as smaller rallies inside casino break rooms or EDRs.15

Another major part of the union’s contract campaign strategy was to exert

pressure on gaming operators through their relationships with consumers, travel

agents, the investment community, government officials, and the greater public. The

effectiveness of these corporate campaign tactics relied upon the success of the rank-

and-file mobilization campaign. For example, the union sought to demonstrate to

gaming investors that settling with the union would be less costly than enduring a
strike, in the hope that these investors would put pressure on the management of

casino companies to agree to a contract that was more favorable to the union. In order

to do this the Culinary Union had to demonstrate to gaming investors that it could

sufficiently mobilize members in order to engage in an effective strike. The ability of

the union to demonstrate that it could mobilize its workers was especially important

because many industry experts thought that casino employees would not strike

because they were still recovering from the wave of layoffs that hit the industry

following 9/11 (Wilhelm, 2004, Alexander, 2005).

15
EDR is a commonly used acronym for Employee Dining Room.

131
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The contract campaign's primary challenge was to legitimately threaten casino

operators, as well as other stakeholders such as investors and tourists, with an effective

work stoppage in the Las Vegas gaming industry. The internal mobilization campaign

culminated in a massive membership-wide strike vote and rally, two weeks before the

contract expiration. Around 20,000 union members attended this rally and voted

almost unanimously to authorize the union's leadership to call a strike. The union’s

corporate campaign centered on two goals: inform stakeholders of the potential strike

and the damage it could inflict on their interests and get these stakeholders to put

pressure on casino operators to settle with the union. The success of these strategy

tactics hinged not just on the union’s contract campaign strategy, but also on several

contextual factors which made Las Vegas casino owners particularly susceptible to

strikes as well as facilitated the Culinary Union’s ability to mobilize its members

(Alexander, 2005).

Rank-and-File Mobilization Effort

The key element of the Culinary and Bartenders Unions' rank-and-file

mobilization campaign was the union’s large and representative bargaining committee.

The bargaining committee provided the foundation for the unions' efforts to
communicate with, survey, educate, and organize its rank-and-file. As a result of

having an active communication and organizing network in the workplace, the union

was able to engage in various kinds of internal and external pressure as well as

solidarity tactics. The union was also able to mobilize workers to pressure employers

in other ways besides in the workplace. For example, on several occasions the union

had workers leaflet outside of casinos along the Strip and picket casinos in downtown

Las Vegas. Finally, the rank-and-file mobilization campaign also provided a

foundation for many of the unions' corporate campaign tactics, since many of these

tactics relied on the union being able to create a legitimate strike threat in the eyes of
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casino operators, gaming industry investors, and other stakeholders in the negotiations.

The creation of such a strike threat relied on the successful mobilization of the rank-

and-file.

In addition to the general mobilization campaign the Culinary Union’s

campaign strategy had elements that were specific to the GRAs. GRAs played an

especially important role in the campaign because they had grown to be by far the

largest occupational category in the Culinary Union, as a result of the growing size of

the casino hotels in Las Vegas. Furthermore, they had been a group of employees that

had been traditionally neglected by the local. Although Al Bramlet had courted their

support during the 1950s and 1960s, this occupational group had traditionally been

treated somewhat like second-class citizens by the Culinary Union. This disparate

treatment may have been partially the result of the fact that these employees

traditionally had been African-Americans, and the gaming industry in Las Vegas, as

well as most of the rest of city, has historically been very segregated16 (Rothman,

2002a). Furthermore, in recent years GRAs had been experiencing a dramatic

increasing in the number and size of hotel rooms they were expected to clean. These

factors combined put GRA workload issues at the top of the Culinary Union’s list of

bargaining priorities in the 2002 round of negotiations (Pappageorge 2003).

However, support for the Culinary Union amongst the GRAs has been low

compared to other occupational categories because of their historically neglected

status. Furthermore, many housekeepers were immigrants, did not speak English as

first language, or came from other disempowered backgrounds. These factors created

several hurdles that the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization strategy had to

overcome. Therefore, the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization strategy for its

16
Although historically GRAs in Las Vegas have been predominately African-American, now the
occupation is dominated by immigrants from Latin America, especially in newer casinos along the
Strip.
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2002 comprehensive contract campaign contained several tactics that were specific to

the GRAs and their workload concerns.

The primary element of the unions' GRA campaign was a study of their

workload. This study was designed to demonstrate to casino operators and the public

that the GRAs were suffering from a high number of work related injuries as a result

of their excessive workload and to show to the GRAs that the union was serious about

addressing important issues that were specific to them. In order to further demonstrate

how serious the Culinary Union was about addressing GRA workload issues, lead

officials spent a day working as GRAs in the local casinos a couple of months before

the negotiations got under way. The union also held a special rally that highlighted

the hardships GRAs faced at work, in which all the union's GRAs were invited along

with local and state governmental and community leaders. Finally, the union used a

variety of efforts to get workers from other departments behind the GRAs such as

having these other members work with GRAs on various contract campaign projects

and have lunch with them in the EDRs.

Building the Contract Committee and Administering the Contract Survey

The Culinary and Bartenders Unions used a large and representative

bargaining committee of about 2000 people in the 2002 contract negotiations. The

union's goal was to have one committee person for every 20 people in each shift in

each department in each hotel. Similar to shop stewards, every 3-5 committee people

were overseen by a lead committee person, who was in turn overseen by an internal

organizer. The Culinary Union also took special precaution to ensure that bargaining

committee was representative of its diverse membership. (Pappageorge, 2003, Dalton,

2003).

The Culinary and Bartenders unions used a large and representative contract

committee for two main reasons. First, a large contract committee improves
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communication with the rank-and-file about the progress of the negotiations. This

helped to even the playing field between management and the union leadership in

terms of their ability to communicate with members. Usually unions are at a

disadvantage in this area because management has direct access to members at work.

Also using a large bargaining committee creates an effective two-way communication

network between the union members and its leadership, which allows the union

leadership to get timely feedback from the rank-and-file about bargaining proposals

made by the union or management (Wilhelm, 2004).

The responsibilities of each bargaining committee member included keeping

the workers they represent informed about the negotiations and collecting feedback

from these workers about their feelings on the progress of the negotiations.

Committee members were also expected to educate those they represent on their

workplace rights and what to do if they are retaliated against for union activity.

Furthermore, committee members are responsible for administering contract surveys

to their respective groups of workers. Usually these activities were done through

informational meetings in the casino

Finally, contract committee members are responsible for mobilizing their

group of workers. This means they make sure that these workers participate in inside

actions such as wearing a contract button or participating in an EDR rally. It also

means that committee members are responsible for turning out members in their group

for union wide activities such as the strike authorization vote (Dalton, 2003,

Pappageorge, 2003, Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002).

The unions' contract administration procedure greatly eased its efforts to put

together the bargaining committees for each hotel operator. They recruited shop

stewards for the bargaining committee and lead shop stewards as lead bargaining

committee members. Generally, committee members were placed in charge of

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mobilizing the same 20 people they represented as shop stewards, and the lead

committee members oversaw the same committee members they oversaw as lead shop

stewards. This meant that rank-and-file members where already familiar with those

who mobilized them for the negotiations (Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003).

In order to recruit shop stewards to be on the contract committee the union

held a city-wide stewards’ meeting on December 13th, 2001, to introduce the

upcoming contract negotiations. After the meeting, the union internal organizers

house visited each shop steward to ask them if they wanted be on the bargaining

committee and explained to them what their responsibilities would be if they choose to

do so. The vast majority of shop stewards agreed to serve on the contract committee.

However, there were a significant number of workers who still did not have a

representative on the bargaining committee either because their shop steward declined

to be on the committee or because they were served by a shop steward who was

already representing another group of workers on the bargaining committee. This

occurred because in a few areas the Culinary Union had not yet recruited enough shop

stewards to meet its goal of one shop steward for every twenty workers (Dalton, 2003,

Pappageorge, 2003, Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002).

The union's contract survey administration procedure was set up in such a way

that it would mobilize workers around the contract campaign and help the union

identify leaders amongst groups of workers who lacked representation on the contract

committee, in addition to its traditional role of informing the union's leadership of

what bargaining issues were most important to the membership. Contract surveys

were generally administered by contract committee members in EDRs when not on

work time. A committeeperson would set up a meeting with a few of the people, from

the list of twenty people they are supposed to represent. Each committee member

would generally administer the survey out loud so as to get other union members
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attention, who were not in their group of twenty. Sometimes, the survey would be

administered in a way that was similar to a rally with committee person, for example,

yelling "Are you ready to strike?" and those taking the survey would respond with a

vociferous "Yes!"17 (Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Contract Negotiations

Information Packet, 2002).

This helped the unions' effort to mobilize workers around the contract

campaign as well as identify leaders from groups of workers that lacked representation

on the committee. By administering surveys in such an attention getting manner,

committee members were able to draw the attention of others who had not yet filled

out a survey. If a person expressed interest in taking the survey, the committee person

would briefly explain the contract campaign to him/her. Then the committee person

would tell him or her that if they were interested in filling out the survey they would

either have to become a committee member by getting 20 people from their shift in

their department to sign a form stating they wanted the individual to be their

committee member, or the individual should find someone else who could do so. It is

important to note that when locating committee people in this way, the union still put a

emphasis on leadership identification, this means that the unions screened potential

committee people to make sure they were capable of leading their co-workers

(Pappageorge, 2003, Dalton, 2003).

GRA Campaign

The Culinary and Bartenders Unions put together a special set of contract

campaign tactics to deal specifically with GRAs and the issue of their workload.

These tactics were designed to highlight the issue of GRA workload to casino

operators and the general public, mobilize the GRAs for the contract campaign, create

17
It is important to note that the Culinary Union regularly polls it members so it was unlikely the
union's leadership was surprised by the survey results
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a sense of solidarity between GRAs and other rank-and-file workers, and make GRAs

the public face of the contract campaign. Tactics used in the GRA campaign included:

having union leaders work as GRAs for a day in one of casinos, sponsoring an outside

study of the GRAs workload and its health effects, holding a special rally to highlight

the issue of GRA workload, including GRAs at the forefront of most public events,

having rank-and-file GRAs eat lunch with rank-and-file workers from other

departments, having rank-and-file leaders from other departments work with GRA

rank-and-file leaders on union affairs, and educating members in other departments on

how the GRA workload issue affects them.

The GRA workload study was perhaps the most involved aspect of the GRA

campaign. The Culinary Union hoped to accomplish several goals with the study.

First, the local wanted to confirm its suspicions that GRAs’ workload had increased

significantly over last decade both in terms of the number of rooms they were

expected to clean and in terms of the amount of work was required to clean each room.

Furthermore, the Culinary Union wanted to confirm concerns that this increase was

having a substantial adverse impact on the overall health of GRAs. Secondly, the

Culinary Union leadership hoped that in addition to increasing its own awareness of

the issue, the study would also legitimize the issue to casino operators, the general

public, and union members in other job classifications (Krause, 2002 Lee & Baker,

2002).

Lastly, the Culinary Union hoped that the study would aid its efforts to

mobilize the GRAs for the final contract campaign (Krause 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002).

This was important for two primary reasons. First, the GRAs were supposed to be the

public face of the campaign. Secondly, as mentioned previously support for the

Culinary Union has traditionally not been as strong among GRAs as it has been among

other job classifications (Pappageorge, 2003).

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The Culinary Union hoped that the study would help mobilize its members in

four primary ways. First of all, the local’s leadership wanted the study to help

convince GRAs that the union was seriously interested in addressing issues that were

of specific importance to them. Furthermore, the Culinary Union hoped the study

would help it identify, recruit, and train rank-and-file leaders from among the GRAs it

represented. The local also hoped that the study would give members experience in

resolving workplace issues in a collective manner through the union. Overall,

Culinary Union leaders hoped that the study would help develop union commitment

and participation amongst the GRAs (Krause 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002).

The union brought in a team of researchers from UC-Berkeley who had helped

HERE Local 2 in San Francisco conduct a similar study. In San Francisco, the same

team of researchers worked for over a year to document the working conditions of

GRAs in the local hospitality industry. With the information gained from the study,

HERE Local 2 was able to get language included in its next contract with hotel

operators that reduced workloads of its GRA members. The Culinary Union hoped

that a corresponding study of GRA workload in Las Vegas would help it win similar

language for its contracts with casino operators in the local gaming industry (Lee &

Baker, 2002).

The UC-Berkeley research team utilized a popular education model for its

GRA work load study in order to link it to the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file

mobilization efforts for the upcoming contract campaign. The popular education

model was introduced by Paulo Freire and is most commonly associated with Freire’s

book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970). Popular education can be defined as a

“systematic investigation, with the collaboration of those affected by the issues being

studied” (Cornrow & Delp, 1999). Under this model research is “driven by the
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questions and goals of the community and is participatory at every level.” (Cornrow &

Delp, 1999).

In regards to the GRA study in Las Vegas, the popular education model can be

understood as being driven by four primary elements. The first is that education is

egalitarian in nature, where the assumption is that everyone has the capacity to teach

as well as learn from others. Secondly, the popular education model focuses on

participants’ lived experiences and abilities of individuals confronting similar

problems to learn from each other. Third, is that learning and action go hand-in-hand

,where the educational process is fundamentally linked to the resolution of the issue

under study. Generally, the resolution of the issue at hand is pursued through some

sort of collective rather than individualistic means. Finally, the popular education

model usually has some sort of empowering effect on the participants; not just in

regards to the resolutions of the issue at hand but rather regards to their overall socio-

economic position. (Cornrow & Delp 1999; Krause 2002; Lee & Baker 2002)

The GRA workload study had four principle parts: eight focus groups sessions

where researchers identified issues that were of particular importance to the GRAs,

data collection, the analysis of the survey results, and the dissemination of the survey

results to rank-and-file members, casino operators, and the general public. The focus

group sessions took place over the summer of 2001, and each one was attended by

about 27 GRAs that had been identified as rank-and-file leaders by the union and

recruited to participate. Each session was about three hours long and took place after

the end of the GRA’s shift (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002).

During the focus group sessions, GRAs described and compared their job

tasks, daily schedules, characteristics of the hotels they worked in, and work changes

over the past five years. Each participant carefully detailed changes in their workload.

Participating GRAs also identified a variety of job stressors such as ergonomic

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problems, physical strain, musculoskeletal problems, productivity demands, and

relationships with supervisors and management. Finally the researchers and

participating GRAs collected and analyzed safety information about the chemicals

used to clean the hotel rooms (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002).

For methodological reasons the survey had to be conducted in a centralized

location, so the union was faced with the difficult task getting a sufficient percentage

of GRAs working in union hotels to come down to the union hall to take the survey.

In addition to the usual logistical problems that come with mobilizing such large

groups of people, the union had to overcome the fact that many GRAs did not have

their own transportation, could not speak English, or in some cases were illiterate.

The first task confronting the local was to inform GRAs about the survey and why it

was important for them to participate. This was largely done through the union

steward structure and other work place leaders the union had recruited specifically for

this task. The union put together a rank-and-file committee specifically for this task,

consisting of about one committee member for about every 12 GRAs. These

committee members stressed to their co-workers how a high survey participation rate

was integral to ability of the union to win a contract limiting GRA workload in the

next round of negotiations. (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002)

The survey was administered at a variety of times at the union hall in order to

ensure equal opportunity for GRAs of different shifts to participate. Each GRA who

was willing to participate scheduled a time to come down to the union hall to take the

survey. Because a large proportion of GRAs did not have their own transportation the

union provided bus service to take the GRAs to the union hall. Survey committee

leaders met GRAs outside of their work place when they finished their shifts in order

to escort them to buses that were scheduled to take them to the union hall. Since some

GRAs had poor literacy skills, survey participants were given the choice of taking the
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survey either verbally or in written form. After a group of GRAs completed the

survey they were given transportation back to the their homes. This was essential

because Las Vegas has a poor public transportation system and many GRAs lived in

neighborhoods that were considered unsafe after dark (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker,

2002).

The researchers from UC-Berkeley analyzed the data in small groups, with

rank-and-file leaders, and union staff. These groups were structured in a way that

encouraged each group bringing their own insights to the data at hand. Role-playing

was used to facilitate this process. By working together each type of participant could

learn the perspective of the other. Furthermore, GRAs learned how many of their

counterparts in other casinos struggled with many of the same issues they did, which

helped to develop a sense of solidarity and outrage amongst the participating GRAs.

They also learned of methods some of their counterparts had developed to deal with

these issues (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002).

The study uncovered several troubling facts regarding GRA workload. First,

the study confirmed widely held beliefs that the workload of GRAs had been steadily

increasing in almost all of Las Vegas’s unionized hotels. This increase resulted both

from increases in the number of rooms GRAs were expected to clean and the amount

of effort required to clean each room. The study also found that many GRA were

coming into work 30-60 minutes early and working off the clock as well as skipping

their lunches in order to complete their work assignments (Krause, 2002, Lee &

Baker, 2002, Pappageorge, 2003, Dalton, 2003).

The health effects of the increased GRA workload were perhaps the most

troubling. The study revealed that in the past year 62% of participating GRAs had

visited the doctor as a result of work related pain and had to take time off in 32% of

these cases. Furthermore, 83% of participating GRA reported taking medication in the
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past four weeks due to work related pain. Also 40% of participating GRAs suffered

from high blood pressure compared to 25% of the overall adult US population. In the

focus group sessions, several GRAs reported suffering from employer retaliation as a

result of reporting work-related injuries. Finally, the study found that GRAs

employed by casinos operators with more contentious relationships with the Culinary

Union tended to be in poorer health (Krause, 2002, Lee & Baker, 2002, Pappageorge,

2003, Dalton, 2003).

The findings from the study were first presented in a special joint contract

negotiation session between the union and management, representatives from all of the

major casino operators were present. Also present were representatives from the

union’s bargaining committee. The researchers took questions from both the

bargaining committee and management representatives about the study (Krause, 2002,

Contract Negotiations Information Packet 2002, Dalton, 2003). Later the union held a

press conference in which the study was presented to the wider public (Berns, 2002g).

The GRA workload study helped the rank-and-file mobilization campaign in a

variety of ways. First, the focus group and data analysis sessions as well as the survey

distribution process helped the union identify, recruit, and train rank-and-file leaders

from among its GRA membership. This was especially important for the local

because GRAs have historically not been very active or supportive of the Culinary

Union. Secondly, as result of the study the GRAs learned to think of their workplace

problems collectively and use the union as a tool to resolve them. Furthermore, the

study helped the local improve its ability to communicate with GRAs about union

issues. For many GRAs this was the first time they had discussed union issues with

their co-workers. Additionally, the study encouraged GRAs to communicate across

ethnic lines, which usually divided this diverse group workers. Also, the survey

helped educate non-GRA union members about the problems affecting GRAs.
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Altogether these factors helped to develop a sense of solidarity amongst the GRAs as

well as increase their union commitment. This is because through the popular

education model the GRA were able to participate in the union and internalize its

values of collective problem solving and solidarity. This process helped to legitimize

the Culinary Union to the GRAs.

Another major part of the GRA campaign was a special rally the Culinary

Union had for the GRAs at the Cashman Center, a large meeting venue in the city of

Las Vegas. About 2,000 GRAs attended this event along with union leaders and local

and state government leaders, including the mayor of Las Vegas and the Governor of

Nevada. At the meeting several housekeepers spoke about the hardships they faced at

work. The union also premiered a short film highlighting the problems GRAs faced at

work. This rally helped the union mobilize the GRAs for the contract campaign as

well as signaled to casino operators, consumers, and investors that the union enjoyed a

high degree of support amongst GRAs in the contract campaign. This event was

important in signaling to GRAs that the union was serious about addressing issues of

specific importance to them. Several Culinary Union organizers reported that this

event, as well as the data collection elements of the GRA workload study were critical,

for winning the support of the GRAs for the contract campaign. (Dalton, 2003,

Hughes, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Zeitz, 2003, Contract Negotiations Information

Packet, 2002). This rally also focused media attention on the GRAs, helping the

Culinary Union's efforts to make the GRAs the public face of its contract campaign

(Berns, 2002p).

An important part of the Culinary Union’s strategy was to make the GRAs the

public face of their contract campaign. Their goal was that by doing this the public

would perceive the contract negotiations as a contest primarily between GRAs and

casino executives. Because GRAs were among the lowest paid workers in the
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industry and were overwhelmingly middle-aged minority mothers, they were more

likely to get the public’s sympathy than other parts of the Culinary Union’s

membership. The effort to get the public's support was reflected in union rallies,

where GRAs usually spoke, and in the union's campaign materials, in which GRAs

figured prominently. For example, the union often included graphics of housekeepers

on their picket signs, campaign buttons and stickers (Pappageorge, 2003).

Furthermore, it was reflected in some of the of the campaign slogans such as: "Follow

the housekeepers to justice." (Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002).

The union’s success in creating the public perception of the contract

negotiations as largely contest between the GRAs and management was reflected in

casino operators’ complaints in the media about this issue. Casino executives

complained in a number of articles in both the Las Vegas Review-Journal and in the

Las Vegas Sun, that the GRA campaign was creating an unfavorable public image of

them and undue sympathy for the Culinary Union in the negotiations (Smith, 2002a,

Berns, 2002f, Berns, 2003, Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002).

In order to create a sense of solidarity between GRAs and other union

members the Culinary Union used a set of tactics that educated non-GRAs about how

curbing the workload of GRAs was also in their interest. The local’s efforts to

encourage communication between GRAs and other workers were focused on both

bargaining committee members as well as the regular rank-and-file. The local

facilitated communication between GRA and non-GRA rank-and-file by encouraging

them to take breaks and meals together in the EDR on a regular basis. One internal

organizer reported that this action in itself greatly alarmed casino managers because it

was a clear demonstration of rank-and-file support for the contract campaign and the

extent of the solidarity that existed between union members. The union efforts to get

GRA and non-GRA bargaining committee members to interact with each other,
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largely consisted of getting these groups of members to work together on various

contract campaign projects. Union organizers also got GRA bargaining committee

members to stand up at rank-and-file meetings and describe what their work was like

and what problems they faced (Dalton, 2002).

The union argued that non-GRAs had a community of interest with GRAs on

the workload issue because casinos were intensifying work across most job categories

and that the GRA campaign was an effort to fight against this, not just for GRAs but

for the other occupations as well. In effect non-GRA rank-and-file members were told

that the GRA campaign was a campaign to head off workload increases in other

departments. A dramatic increase in workloads following 9/11 greatly facilitated the

Culinary and Bartenders Unions' efforts in this respect as members in many

occupations grew alarmed about their own workloads and there became more

supportive of the union and less trustful of employers on this issue overall (Dalton,

2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Wilhelm, 2003).

Miscellaneous Rank-and-File Mobilization Tactics

In addition to building a contract committee, administering the contract survey,

and the GRA campaign the Culinary Union utilized a variety of other tactics to

mobilize its membership. These activities centered around developing other means of

communication with the membership, building a sense of solidarity amongst the

members, and developing rank-and-file confidence about engaging in collective action

in the workplace.

The Culinary and Bartenders' Union utilized a number of other means to

communicate with their memberships other than through the bargaining committee.

Many of these tactics are relatively common aspects of collective bargaining, such as

regular bilingual mailings to the membership detailing the progress of the negotiations

and house visiting members. The two locals also put together a one hour twice weekly
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bilingual radio show, with union leaders fielding calls from members and the public

about the contract negotiations. (Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002,

Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003)

In addition to the previously mentioned tactics, union members wore contract

campaigns buttons and ribbons in a show of solidarity. Often, Culinary Union

members in casinos whose contracts did not expire in 2002 wore campaign buttons

and ribbons to show their solidarity with their fellow union members at properties that

were involved in the negotiations (Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002,

Arguello-Kline, 2003). In one instance, a number of workers at Harrah’s were

suspended for wearing their union buttons. In response, the union got all the workers

at another casino that was owned by the same company but was not involved in the

2002 negotiations to wear contract campaign buttons in order to express their

solidarity with their suspended colleagues. Soon after this demonstration, the

management of Harrah’s backed down and the workers were reinstated (Arguello-

Kline, 2003).

Rank-and-File External and Internal Pressure Tactics

The Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization effort enabled the local to

effectively engage in a number of rank-and-file intensive pressure tactics that

significantly increased its leverage at the bargaining table. These tactics were utilized

both within the workplace and outside of the workplace and often were also part of the

local’s corporate campaign strategy. Furthermore, these tactics were used to

demonstrate to stakeholders that the Culinary Union had successfully mobilized their

membership and could legitimately threaten to engage in an effective strike.

The most dramatic of the local’s internal tactics were EDR rallies and

delegations to management over contract issues and organizable grievances. David

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Berns briefly described a typical EDR rally in an article he wrote in the Las Vegas

Review-Journal:

On a recent morning, 100 housekeepers, waitresses and others gathered in

Treasure Island's employee dining room for a mini-union rally led by State
Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, who herself is a restaurant waitress and
shop steward at the Strip mega-resort. The five-minute gathering began with
the sort of rhythmic clapping and chanting that dominates much larger
Culinary gatherings. 'Union! Union! Union!' Carlton yelled as her
predominantly Spanish-speaking audience of uniformed workers joined in. 'Si,
se puede! Si, se puede! Si, se puede!' came the Spanish-language response of
'Yes we can!' A collection of seven or eight Treasure Island executives stood
along a nearby wall eyeing the scene. (Berns 2002g)

It is important to note that in addition to being pressure tactics, these tactics

also served to mobilize the rank-and-file and develop a sense of solidarity in the

workplace. These tactics were a regular part of the unions' workplace campaign

strategy taking place on numerous occasions in a variety of hotels. In interviews many

of the internal organizers expressed the opinion that if the union had not already been

pursuing a contract administration strategy based on the organizing model, the ability

of the union to use tactics such as EDR rallies and delegations to management as part

of its contract campaign strategy would have been significantly diminished (Contract

Negotiations Information Packet, 2002, Berns, 2003, Dalton, 2003, Hughes, 2003

Pierce, 2003, Zeitz, 2003, Alexander, 2005, Henry, 2005, Pappageorge, 2005).

In addition to employing rank-and-file intensive strategies inside the

workplace, the union also engaged in a number of rank-and-file intensive strategies

outside of the workplace. Such strategies included leafleting and picketing outside of

casinos as well as holding in several large rallies and demonstrations. Similar to the

inside pressure tactics, the success of the union in employing these external pressure

tactics is significantly linked to its prior contract administration strategies.

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The Culinary Union flyered outside casinos both downtown and along the strip

numerous times. In order to avoid violating their current contract, the local flyered

outside of nonunion casinos.18 Perhaps the most imaginative of these actions was the
Culinary Union's "Support My Mommy Day" This action took place on May 18th less

than two weeks before the contract expired on June 1st. "Support My Mommy Day"

was staged on the Strip with a fair-like atmosphere with the union handing out

balloons, hotdogs, and lemonade to people walking along the Strip. The main part of

the action consisted of the children of the GRAs handing out flyers with headings such

as "Please help our moms!" Also included on the flyers were pictures the children had

drawn of themselves and their moms with information about the GRAs workload and

its health effects and other contract campaign issues.19 (Contract Negotiations

Information Packet, 2002, German, 2002n, Simpson, 2002v).

Union rallies and marches also made up a large part of the Culinary Union

campaign strategy. The union held numerous rallies in conjunction with the contract

negotiations, the most important of which was the May 16th strike vote that served as

the capstone of the union rank-and-file mobilization effort. The unions’ ability to

successfully organize these rallies and demonstrations exerted a lot of pressure on

casinos to settle because they greatly alarmed investors, consumers, and the casino
operators themselves about the probability and severity of a strike. The high degree of

rank-and-file participation in the rallies and demonstrations sent a message to

stakeholders in the negotiations that the Culinary Union had the strong support of its

members in the negotiations and that a strike was probable if a settlement could not be

reached.

18
Flyering was still effective because of the geographical proximity of the nonunion properties to the
union properties and the heavy pedestrian traffic between the casinos, both along the Las Vegas Strip
and downtown.
19
A copy of one such flyer is included at the end of this paper.
 150

Much like the EDR rallies, the larger rallies and demonstrations that made up

the Culinary Union’s contract campaign would not have been possible without the

extensive shop floor organization the union built up both prior to and in the earlier

parts of the contract campaign. By the time it became necessary to turn out members

for these rallies and demonstration the unions’ rank-and-file were already highly

mobilized. Many of the Culinary Union’s staff members pointed out that these rallies

and demonstrations had a snowballing effect, so that smaller rallies that were held

earlier in the campaign acted as mobilizing agents, making it easier for the Culinary

Union to turn out workers for similar events later in the campaign (Dalton, 2003,

Weiss, 2003, Pappageorge, 2004).

Other than the GRA rally discussed earlier the Culinary Union engaged in

three other major rallies and marches in the course of the contract campaign.

Furthermore, in addition to these major rallies the two locals held smaller rallies in

conjunction with other unions that were holding conventions in Las Vegas. There

were three of these rallies: June 8th with about 1,500 marchers from the UAW, June

18 with 1,500 members of the CWA, and June 26th with 2,000 members of AFSCME.

(Simpson 2002m; Simpson 2002i)

The May 16th strike vote and rally was the most significant of the 2002

contract negotiations. It was the first time the Culinary Union, in its history, had

attempted to mobilize its entire membership for a single rally. As mentioned earlier,

the May 16th rally/strike vote was the climax of the Culinary Union’s mobilization

efforts. More than 20,000 union members showed up to the rally and they voted

18,654 to 877 in favor of authorizing the unions' bargaining committee to call a strike

(Berns, 2002b). Attendance at the May 16th rally exceeded the union leaderships’

expectations and caused traffic tie-ups that prevented even more rank-and-file union
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members from attending (Dalton, 2003, Weiss, 2003). Much of the mobilizing for the

May 16th strike vote was done through the union's bargaining committee.

This rally was significant because much of the Culinary and Bartenders'

Unions' contract campaign strategy was based upon the ability of the unions' to

effectively strike the Las Vegas casino industry, and the May 16th strike vote and rally

sent a clear message to casino operators, investors and consumers that the Culinary

and Bartenders Unions were prepared to strike in order to obtain their contract

demands. According to several union staffers who sat in on the actual negotiations,

management became much more willing to seriously consider the Culinary Union’s

contract demands after the negotiations (Wilhelm, 2003, Pappageorge, 2005,

Alexander, 2005). In fact, in the weeks following the strike vote the union settled its

first contract with one of the major casino operators, Park Place Entertainment. Soon

after this first contract, other casino operators settled with the union, signing contracts

patterned after the one with Park Place (Pappageorge, 2004). The Culinary Union

accomplished their two most important goals with these contracts: protecting the

quality of their healthcare plan and restricting GRA workload (Berns. 2002h, Berns,

2002i, Berns, 2002j, Berns, 2002k).

The second largest rally related to the 2002 contract negotiations took place on

June 21st on Fremont Street in front of the downtown casinos with which the union

was negotiating. The estimated attendance at this rally was 12,000 consisting of both

downtown and Strip employees. Although Strip casino operators had settled by this

time, downtown operators were still holding out for a less expensive contract. In order

to turn out such large numbers for the rally the Culinary and Bartender's Union had to

successfully mobilize Strip workers, from casinos who had already settled with the

union. Therefore, the fact that about half of the people at the rally worked at Strip

casinos was especially remarkable (Simpson, 2002d, Hughes, 2003).

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The 33-hour downtown picket line was another important public rally held to

put pressure on downtown casino operators. The rally consisted of informational

pickets that were set up in front of downtown casinos 33 hours before the contract

extension the union held with the downtown casinos expired. The pickets were set up

in front of these casinos at 3 p.m. on June 29th and about 1,000 people manned the

picket line (Simpson, 2002e).

Corporate Pressure Tactics

As discussed in the introduction to this chapter the Culinary Union’s corporate

campaign exploited casino operators' networks of relations with investors, consumers,

meeting planners, and travel agents as points of leverage in the contract negotiations.

Furthermore, the local closely coordinated its corporate campaign effort with the rank-

and-file mobilization campaign, creating a comprehensive campaign strategy that was

reliant on the local’s ability to mobilize its rank-and-file members.

A key part of the Culinary Unions' corporate campaign was convincing casino

investors and consumers as well as travel agents and meeting planners to put pressure

on casino operators to settle with the union. In order to do this, the two locals had to

convince these parties that their respective stakes within the Las Vegas gaming

industry, whether it was an investment, a client's account, or a vacation would be

endangered if casino operators did not settle with the union. The way that the unions

did this was to convince these parties that the Culinary Union could effectively engage

in a strike, if they were unable to reach an acceptable settlement with the major Las

Vegas casino operators (Alexander, 2005).

The Culinary Union also sought to convince stakeholders that the prosperity

enjoyed by the gaming industry prior to the 9/11 attacks was partially the result of the

cooperative relationship that existed between the union and most gaming operators

over the previous dozen years. For example, as discussed in the prior chapter, the
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Culinary Union’s parent union, HERE has cooperated with casino operators in order to

enable the gaming industry to expand to new jurisdictions where it had been

previously prohibited. Additionally, the two parties have cooperated in order to

contain gaming taxes and the healthcare costs of casino employees. The Culinary

Union also compared the performances of the generally thriving unionized casinos

along the Las Vegas strip to their generally under performing non-union counterparts

such as the Venetian and Aladdin, which further strengthened their argument about the

importance of positive labor relations for the local industry’s prosperity.20 The

Culinary Union sought to convince stakeholders that casino operators’ were

endangering the benefits they reaped from the cooperative labor-management

relationship by taking such a hard-line in the negotiations (Alexander, 2005).

In order to recognize the full value of this aspect of the Culinary Union’s

corporate campaign strategy it is important to appreciate how important a positive

public image is to casino operators. The gaming industry is very image conscious

because of moral questions about gambling itself, and the industry’s links, in the mind

of many people, with societal problems such as addiction and organized crime. The

gaming industry has become especially aware of its own image problems as it has

tried to move into new jurisdictions, where it has been previously prohibited. The

gaming industry is especially sensitive to bad publicity revolving around labor issues,

because one of the key arguments the industry makes when lobbying against

restrictions on gambling is that the industry provides good, living wage jobs.

Furthermore, the gaming industry usually cites Las Vegas as a prime example of

where the gaming industry has benefited workers. As a result, if it were widely

reported that casino operators in Las Vegas were trying undermine the standard of

20
As of 2002, both the Venetian and the Aladdin had consistently lost money since their openings.
Furthermore, the MGM-Grand, which operated with significant losses while remaining non-union, was
able to turn itself around once its were workers were organized and by 2002 had several profitable years
under its belt. (Rothman 2003)
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living of their employees in Las Vegas, it would significantly undermine the industry’s

expansion efforts overall (Alexander, 2005). Therefore, it was especially important

for the union to publicize the casino operators antagonistic approach to the

negotiations as well as demonstrate to investors how management was endangering

the gaming industry’s expansionary prospects (Alexander, 2005).

When communicating with investors the Culinary Union used the dramatic fall

off in business following 9/11 to its advantage as well. The union explained to

investors that the losses casino operators incurred in the last city wide strike in 1984

approximated the recent losses casinos had suffered as a result of 9/11. Local 226’s

lead researcher felt that this message resonated particularly strongly with investors

because they were just recovering from the dramatic financial hit they suffered as

result of 9/11 (Alexander, 2005). For example, although room occupancy had

returned to pre-9/11 levels by the time of the negotiations, room rates and stock prices

were still on the rebound. Gaming investors were nervous that a city-wide strike in

Las Vegas would threaten this nascent recovery. Overall, in the case of investors the

Culinary Union sought to demonstrate that settling on the union’s terms would be less

expensive than trying endure a city wide strike and throwing away the mutually

beneficial relationship that had developed between most Las Vegas casino operators

and the union (Alexander, 2005).

In order to convince consumers, investors and travel agents that the union

could effectively strike the Las Vegas Strip the union had to effectively mobilize its

membership around the negotiations and advertise this mobilization to the respective

parties. The union did this by holding very visible rallies such as the May 16th strike

vote or the Cashman Center rally, sending information to investors, travel agents,

meeting planners as well as businesses that provide goods and services to Las Vegas

casinos about the negotiations, scheduling several conference calls with gaming
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investors in order to give the union’s perspective in the negotiations, continually

flyering outside of casinos, setting up a regularly updated web page dealing with the

negotiations, and promoting extensive coverage in the regular as well as business

media.

It is important to note that the Culinary Union had already developed

relationships with many important stakeholders such as several large institutional

investors and business publications that routinely reported on the gaming industry. In

fact, because the union had already established a reputation with many in the business

community for providing accurate and valuable information and analysis on issues

related to the gaming industry, many investors as well as other stakeholders sought out

the union’s perspective on the contract negotiations. These relationships helped the

union to get its message out in the 2002 contract campaign (Alexander, 2005). This

was especially important because Las Vegas principal daily newspaper tended to favor

management in its coverage of labor issues (Benz, 2004).

The Culinary Union’s corporate pressure tactics would have been ineffective if

the Culinary union had not successfully mobilized their rank-and-file for a possible

strike, because these tactics centered on the ability of the union to effectively convince

stakeholders that a strike would be more damaging to their interests than if casino

operators simply settled on terms acceptable to the union. The goal of the Culinary

Union was to create as much stakeholder concern as possible, so that these

stakeholders would put pressure on casino employers to settle with the union.

Influence of Context of Culinary Union Comprehensive Campaign Strategy

The last chapter analyzed how the Culinary Union’s own internal practices in

the years prior to 2002 influenced the local’s strategic decision making and success in

mounting its comprehensive contract campaign in the spring of that year. The

following section will discuss how the campaign was influenced by external factors
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such as the socio-political climate and industrial context. The Culinary Union’s 2002

campaign strategy sought to take advantage of leverage points and minimize liabilities

created by these factors.

A key advantage the Las Vegas casino industry afforded the Culinary Union in

2002 was the continued effectiveness of the strike as an industrial relations tactic for

the local. Unlike other industries where the advent of widespread use of permanent

replacements and other unfavorable changes in labor law have significantly

undermined the power of a strike, the strike remains a potent weapon for unions in Las

Vegas’s casino industry, if combined with effective rank-and-file mobilization and

corporate pressure campaign. The Culinary Union demonstrated the continued

effectiveness of strikes in the local casino industry in previous disputes with Binion’s

Horseshoe and the Frontier as well as in the 1984 city wide strike. In each of these

instances casino operators lost significant amounts of revenue as a result of strikes

called by the Culinary Union.

Strikes are still effective in Las Vegas for a variety of reasons. The first reason

is that service quality is very important in the casino industry, and a strike can cut to

the heart of casino patron’s experience in Las Vegas. On the most fundamental level,

having several thousand noisy picketers marching up and down the Las Vegas Strip or

the Fremont Street Experience can ruin any vacationer’s or conferee’s trip to Las

Vegas. Furthermore the large amount of contact between casino employees and

patrons means that low employee morale or unprepared striker replacements can

dramatically effect the quality of service patrons receive (Rothman, 2002b, Rothman,

2003). As MGM-Mirage’s Chairman Terri Lanni explained in an interview with the

New York Times: “When you’re in the service business, the contact our guests have is

with the guest-room attendants or the food and beverage servers, and if that person is

unhappy that comes across to guests very quickly.” (Greenhouse, 2004). This factor is
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especially important for the higher-end properties that dominate the Las Vegas Strip,

who often use higher service quality rating to distinguish themselves from their

competitors. The importance of a positive labor relations environment on service

quality is highlighted by the poor ratings non-union strip casino such as the Venetian

and Aladdin have received (Rothman, 2002b, Rothman, 2003).

The relative isolation of Las Vegas also increases the effectiveness of strikes in

the local casino industry. There is not a sufficient employment base in Las Vegas’s

metropolitan area from which casino operators can recruit replacement workers if the

Culinary Union were to engage in a city-wide strike. If such a strike were to occur

casino operators would have to recruit strike replacements from other major

population centers in the southwest such as Los Angeles or Phoenix (Berns, 2002n).

This process is made more difficult by the unappealing nature of GRAs’ work, which

is the largest job category in Las Vegas’s casino industry (Dalton, 2003, Wilhelm,

2004, Henry, 2005).

The effectiveness of a strike in Las Vegas’s casino industry is also heightened

by fact that three of the four largest casino operators in Las Vegas derive a large

proportion of their revenue from their Las Vegas operations. This fact makes it

difficult for these operators to use revenue from other localities to wait out a strike in

Las Vegas’s casino industry as happened in the 2003-2004 UFCW grocery strike.

Furthermore, at the time of the negotiations, casino operators were in significant debt,

which further increased their vulnerability to a Culinary Union strike. This is because

casino operators largely relied on the revenue they earned from their Las Vegas

operations to finance their debt payments (Rothman, 2002b, Rothman, 2003,

Alexander, 2005).

In developing its comprehensive contract campaign strategy the Culinary

Union took these factors into account. The rank-and-file mobilization effort sought to
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create very visible signs of the willingness of the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file to

strike if casino operators did not concede to their contract demands. The union did

this by holding very large rallies in the build up to the contract expiration date,

culminating with the May 16th strike vote. The local also held a number of smaller

events designed for media attention as well as rank-and-file mobilization such as the

intermittent EDR rallies and various rallies downtown.

The Culinary Union’s research department then ensured that the various stake

holders who influenced the casino operators’ decision making process were aware of

the militancy of the local’s rank-and-file workers and the probable effect of a city-

wide strike on casino operator’s revenues. The local contacted a wide variety of stake

holders in this process such as: convention and meeting planners, creditors, investors,

investment analysts, and travel agents. All of these had a significant financial stake in

the continued profitability of unionized casinos in Las Vegas. In order to present a

convincing argument to these parties the union demonstrated how much revenue

casino operators had lost in previous strikes such as the 1984 city-wide strike or the

more recent Frontier strike. Furthermore, the local sought to show to these groups the

benefits of having a positive labor relations environment in Las Vegas, by highlighting

the low service ratings of non-union Strip properties. As a result of the Culinary

Union’s efforts casino operators began to come under pressure from a variety of

stakeholders to settle with the union.

Union strategy in negotiations with downtown and neighborhood casino operators

The Culinary Union faced a very different set of circumstances in its

negotiations with the downtown and neighborhood casino operators leading it to

modify its strategy of negotiations with these properties. This highlights the

importance of adapting comprehensive contract campaign strategies to the

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environment in which they take place as discussed by Bronfenbrenner and Juravich

(2001)

Unlike their Strip counterparts, downtown and unionized neighborhood casinos

were not flourishing businesses, rather they were businesses whose continued viability

was questionable. Furthermore, the vast majority of downtown and unionized

neighborhood casinos were not owned by large gaming and hospitality corporations,

rather they were often privately-owned family-run businesses. Additionally, the

unionized neighborhood casinos operated in a largely non-union market, which meant

that unlike their Strip counterparts, they faced competition from other non-union

casinos with less expensive labor costs. Finally, downtown casinos competed with the

largely non-union neighborhood casinos for local customers.

These conditions lead the Culinary Union to alter its strategy for its

negotiations with the downtown and neighborhood casino operators. First, its public

relations campaign could not rely on a David vs. Goliath public perception of the

campaign as largely a battle between low-paid GRAs and the large greedy gaming

corporations. This is because, given the conditions discussed in the previous

paragraph, most of the public in fact thought that the union had the upper hand in the

negotiations with downtown and neighborhood casinos (Rothman 2003). Therefore,

in order to gain public support the union emphasized issues such as: the importance of

maintaining affordable health insurance for the disproportionably older downtown

workforce and the long tenure of many downtown employees with the same casino.

Furthermore, many downtown and neighborhood operators were closely-held

organizations, limiting the number of outside stakeholders the Culinary Union could

use to influence the their decision on whether to settle with the union. However,

because most of these operations were only marginally viable they also were much

more wary of taking on the large Culinary Union. (Pappageorge 2003)

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Also because the Culinary Union settled with the large Strip operators first, it

sought to mobilize its rank-and-file members from these properties to become

involved in the on-going negotiations with the downtown and neighborhood casinos.

This was done by setting up an adopt-a-hotel program where workers from hotels that

had already settled with the Culinary Union were assigned to hotels the had yet to

settle. These workers were then expected to engage in various solidarity actions with

workers from their "adopted" hotels. These actions included such things as eating

meals in groups at the hotels still engaged in negotiations to show their support for

union members in these hotels, and showing up to rallies and pickets involving their

"adopted" hotels (Contract Negotiations Information Packet, 2002). Again, rank-and-

file workers were mobilized for these solidarity actions through their bargaining reps,

further demonstrating the importance of the bargaining committee and previous

contract administration strategy to the contract campaign. The success of the "adopt-

a-hotel" program was demonstrated by the fact 12,000 people participated in the June

21st March in downtown Las Vegas, when only about 5,000-plus union members

work in the downtown and neighborhood casinos (German, 2002, Simpson 2002f,

Simpson 2002m).

Impact of 9/11 on the 2002 Comprehensive Contract Campaign

The 2002 round of contract negotiations was profoundly influenced by the 9/11

disaster and the fall out in the national tourist industry that it caused. Las Vegas,

because its economy is largely based on tourism, was one of the hardest hit cities in

the United States from this phenomenon. The local casino industry faced the brunt of

the economic downturn. Hotel occupancy and room rates plummeted. Although hotel

occupancy had rebounded by the end of 2001, room rates remained depressed long

into 2002.
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This decline in tourism activity lead to massive lay-offs throughout the Las

Vegas's casino industry. At the peak of the lay-offs around half of the Culinary

Union’s total membership had either been laid off or had their hours dramatically

reduced. Several months after the 9/11 disaster, former casino workers were still

waiting to get called back to their jobs and an even larger number of formerly full-time

workers remained on part-time status. Those who were able to hold on to their jobs

faced a dramatically increased workload as they had to cover the work of their co-

workers who had been laid off or were working reduced hours (Wilhelm, 2004, Smith,

2002b).

Although many laid off workers had been rehired by the time the 2002 contract

negotiations were underway, the lay-offs following September 11th became a

significant issue in the negotiations. The economic fallout caused by 9/11 in the

hospitality and gaming industries caused widespread fear among union members about

their job security and overall economic well being. This fear was exasperated by the

fact most of the Culinary Union members earned relatively low wages to begin with,

and therefore could not easily weather long periods of unemployment (Wilhelm, 2004,

Pappageorge, 2003). Furthermore, a proposal by the Culinary Union leaders to cut the

hours of more senior employees who were still working, in order to decrease the

number of more junior members that had been laid-off created divisions within the

local’s rank-and-file membership (Rothman, 2002b).

However by early 2002, employee outrage over how casino employers handled

the post-9/11 crisis in Las Vegas Gaming industry overcame these earlier fears and

divisions. There were a variety of reasons why local casino employees began to aim

their antagonism toward employers. First, many employees and union officials

thought that casino operators had used the economic fallout following 9/11 as an

excuse to increase employee workloads on a more long-term basis. They accused the
 162

casino operators of failing to rehire workers at a rate that was commiserate with the

rate that business was rebounding by the end of 2001, and expecting workers to handle

an increased workload long after it was necessary (Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003,

Wilhelm, 2003).

Furthermore, on April 2nd just as the 2002 contract negotiations were getting

underway, it was revealed that executives at MGM-Mirage had received large bonuses

in the midst of the post 9/11 fallout. These bonuses undermined the rhetoric of shared

sacrifice used by many in the casino industry after 9/11 and were later used by casino

operators to justify some of their concessionary contract demands. The bonuses also

created a sense of bad feeling towards casino operators within the general local

population, since the post-9/11 fallout in the gaming industry had caused tremendous

hardship in the rest of the local economy. This helped the Culinary Union obtain the

sympathy of the public in the 2002 negotiations. Finally, The Mandalay Resort Group

exasperated this sense of bad feeling by going ahead with their project to add a

convention center and additional hotel tower to the Mandalay Bay Casino, while

arguing they could not afford union demands as a result of 9/11 (Rothman, 2002b,

Simpson, 2002a, Smith, 2002b).

According to HERE President John Wilhelm, employee anger towards casino

operators was higher than anything he had ever previously experienced in Las Vegas’s

casino industry. Most of the Culinary Union’s internal organizers interviewed for this

case study, reported similar feelings among the workers they interacted with. They

also said that antagonism created by the actions of casino employers in the aftermath

of 9/11 significantly aided their efforts to mobilize rank-and-file union members.

Furthermore, before 9/11 the Culinary Union had already decided to focus on GRA

workload issues in the 2002 contract campaign, so widespread suspicion that casino

operators had used the disaster to increase work loads, facilitated the union’s
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mobilization efforts in this area, in particular. Several organizers stated that they felt

that employer reluctance to reduce workloads as tourism began to pick-up after the

9/11 emergency subsided created much more sympathy for the GRA workload issue

amongst union members outside of the housekeeping department. Overall, the 9/11

disaster may have had the effect of highlighting the divisions in the interests of casino

employees and management (Dalton, 2002, Hughes, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003,

Wilhelm, 2004).

In the wake of the post-9/11 fall out in the tourism industry many hospitality

and gaming industry experts predicted that unions in these industries would have to

make significant concessions in upcoming rounds of negotiations, and Las Vegas was

no exception. However, HERE's national leadership argued publicly that the effects of

9/11 were only temporary and they did not see them as adequate justification for

locking their members into inferior contracts for several years into the future. HERE

had its first post-9/11 round of negotiations in Boston in October and November and

many labor experts saw these negotiations as setting the precedent for subsequent

post-9/11 rounds of negotiations, including Las Vegas. In spite of the fact that hotel

occupancy in Boston was down by roughly 60% and at least half the local's

membership had been laid off, HERE Local 26 in Boston put together an aggressive

comprehensive contract campaign and was able to achieve one of the best contracts in

the history of their local. The union was able to obtain a five-year contract granting

their members a five percent wage increase and an additional personal day off as well

as providing Local 26 with card check neutrality for any new hotels opened in Boston

by the hotel chains that signed the agreement.

This successful contract campaign demonstrated that it was possible to

negotiate a strong contract in the wake of 9/11. Furthermore, it demonstrated that the

9/11 disaster had left hotels, and thus probably casino employers, in a weakened
 164

position. This was especially true for employers who were deep in debt, like the major

employers in Las Vegas. This was because the events of 9/11 had made it more

difficult for them to meet their debt service requirements, therefore making them and

other creditors nervous about potentially disrupting revenue flow by engaging in a

protracted labor struggle. (Berns, 2002g, Wilhelm, 2004, Stoughton, 2001).

Therefore, although on a prima facie level it seemed likely that the 9/11

disaster should have undermine the Culinary Union’s bargaining position in the 2002

negotiations, it actually had a more mixed effect. Initially the fallout in the tourism

industry following 9/11 divided the Culinary Union’s membership and left them

concerned about the future of their jobs. However, the actions of casino operators in

the aftermath of 9/11, alienated casino employees. This had the ultimate effect of

aiding union mobilization efforts for the 2002 contract campaign. For example, the

increase in overall employee workloads aided Culinary Union efforts to mobilize

members around the GRA workload issue for the 2002 contract campaign. The 9/11

disaster also made casino employers more vulnerable to corporate pressure tactics

because they were concerned labor unrest may disrupt ability of casinos to meet their

debt service requirements and threaten the post-9/11 recovery of the casino industry

that was taking place at the time of the negotiations.

Conclusion
The primary strategy of the Contract Campaign was to credibly threaten to

strike the entire Las Vegas casino industry if gaming operators did not concede to the

union’s contract demands. This strategy consisted of two parts. The first part

consisted of mobilizing workers in a very visible way thereby creating the appearance

of widespread worker militancy in the industry. The second part of the campaign was

to convince stakeholders in the negotiations that the strike threat was real and compel

them to pressure casino operators to settle with the union.

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This strategy was well adapted to the context of the negotiations both in terms

of the Culinary Union’s own internal organizational strengths and in terms of the

bargaining environment the local faced. Largely as a result of its prior contract

administration, contract bargaining, external organizing, and political strategies the

Culinary Union had developed the organizational capacity to mobilize its more than

45,000 members for the negotiations. The local’s contract administration strategy in

the years leading up to the negotiations probably played the largest role in preparing

the union’s rank-and-file members for the mobilization effort.

The Culinary Union’s 2002 contract campaign strategy was also well adapted

to its external environment. The Culinary Union had identified the primary weakness

of Las Vegas casino operators as their continued vulnerability to strikes, therefore the

corporate campaign focused on exposing this vulnerability to a variety of stakeholders

who the union thought would influence the decision making process of the operators

in the negotiations. These stakeholders were primarily gaming industry investors,

investment analysts, creditors, meeting and convention planners, travel agents, and

vacationers. In order to gain leverage vis-à-vis casino operators, the Culinary Union

educated these stakeholders about the likelihood and probable cost of a city wide

strike in Las Vegas’s casino industry and used them to pressure casino operators to

settle with the union. Therefore, developing a credible strike threat was critical to

these efforts, and a highly visible rank-and-file mobilization campaign was the key to

this process.
Chapter VII: 2002 Contract Negotiations: Overview of Events

Introduction

This chapter provides an account of the actual 2002 contract negotiations

between the Culinary Union and most of the unionized gaming operators in Las

Vegas. It will begin with an overview of how gaming operators approached the

negotiations and describe how a variety of factors inhibited the casino operators from

coordinating their bargaining strategy with each other. This gave the Culinary Union

an additional degree of leverage in the negotiations, because it allowed the local to

whipsaw casino operators and put additional pressure on operators who were the most

resistant to settling on the union’s terms. This chapter will also highlight the

important role played by rank-and-file mobilization in the negotiations. For example,

it is important to note that the first settlements the union reached with Strip and

downtown operators respectively occurred right after the union had held massive

rallies demonstrating the militancy of its members. This level of mobilization would

not have been possible without the great degree preparation of the union went through,

as described in previous chapters.

Las Vegas Strip Employers’ Strategies and Objectives

In the 2004 contract negotiations, casino operators bargained in several distinct

groups, each with its own set of objectives and strategies. The most fundamental sub-

division amongst casino operators was between those who primarily operated casinos

along the Las Vegas Strip and those who primarily operated casinos located either

downtown or other locations off the Strip. The Strip operators can be further

subdivided into two groups: large multi-property operators and smaller single property

operators. The former group tended to run the Strip’s newer, more upscale properties,

and have a dominant presence in other major gaming markets such as Atlantic City.

166
 167

At the time of the 2002 negotiations there were four of these larger Strip operators: the

Mandalay Resort Group, Park Place, MGM-Mirage, and Harrah’s. The second group

of Strip casino operators were the smaller gaming companies who only owned one

property along the strip and maybe a few additional properties in other gaming

markets. In contrast to the first group, these smaller operators generally ran the Strip’s

older, less upscale casinos.

The major strip casino operators were the first to enter into negotiations with

the Culinary Union in 2002. However, by 2002 this group of employers was no

longer led by Steve Wynn. Wynn did not participate in the negotiation process

because in 2000 his Mirage Resorts had been acquired by Kirk Kerkorian’s MGM in

an unfriendly take over. The name of the new entity created by this take over was

MGM-Mirage. With Wynn, out of the picture, there was some question at the

beginning of 2002 about how local gaming operators would organize themselves for

the upcoming negotiations.

By mid-Spring 2002 it became apparent that the major strip operators were

going to follow two distinct strategies in the upcoming contract negotiations: The

Mandalay Resort Group pushed for the three other major Las Vegas gaming operators

to negotiate together and adopt a confrontational strategy in the negotiations. The

Mandalay Resort Group’s initial demands included shifting more healthcare costs to

the union members, the elimination of the guaranteed work week, the ability to assign

shorter shifts, and an increase in the use of “steady extras”21 (Pappageorge, 2003).
The Mandalay Resort Group also strongly resisted the Culinary Union’s efforts to

reduce GRA workload. The Mandalay Resort Group’s tactics and rhetoric in the

21
Steady-extras are workers who are part of the bargaining unit, but do not have steady schedules and
are instead called in on a per need basis. Therefore, many of these employees do not qualify for the
same benefits as full time employees. Many employers call in steady extras through the Culinary
Union’s hiring hall.
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negotiations were much more confrontational than had been usual for Las Vegas. The

company’s management refused to attach any legitimacy to the GRA workload issue

and repeatedly attacked the union in the press. In one incident security guards

working for Mandalay Bay beat up a group of workers who were holding an EDR

rally at the operator’s Circus-Circus casino.

None of the Culinary Union officials that interviewed for this case study could

say conclusively why the Mandalay Bay Group chose to pursue such an antagonistic

strategy. One theory suggested by several Culinary Union staff and leaders was that

the management of the Mandalay Resort Group thought that workers were still

traumatized by the post-9/11 layoffs and so would acquiesce when faced with

confrontational management tactics and concessionary contract demands (Wilhelm,

2004, Alexander, 2005, Pappageorge, 2005). Another possible explanation is that

with Steve Wynn out of the picture, the management team at the Mandalay Resort

Group saw an opening to assume his previous leadership role in Las Vegas’s casino

industry. Additionally, the Mandalay Resort Group had an added incentive to demand

a concessionary contract from the Culinary Union, because it earned a larger

proportion of its overall EBITDA from its Las Vegas properties than any of the other

three major casino operators. This meant that an expensive contract in Las Vegas

would be more harmful to the Mandalay Resort Group than it would be to any of its

rivals (Rothman, 2003).

However, the Mandalay Bay Resort Group's efforts to convince the major

casino operators to follow their lead largely failed, with only MGM-Mirage agreeing

to cooperate with them in the 2002 negotiations. MGM-Mirage adopted a

confrontational stance in the negotiations for probably largely the same reasons as the

Mandalay Bay Group. It most likely saw a chance to take advantage of its traumatized

workforce, and its exposure to the Las Vegas Strip in terms of percentage of overall
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EBITDA was significantly larger than the other two major casino operators (Bohner,

2003, Wilhelm, 2004, Alexander, 2005). Furthermore, MGM-Mirage owner Kirk

Kerkorian historically has had a checkered relationship with the Culinary Union. He

was one of the leaders behind casino operators’ efforts to force a strike and bust the

Culinary Union in 1984 (Benz, 2004). Furthermore, in the early 1990s Kerkorian

resisted the spirit of cooperation, which characterized the relationship between the

Culinary Union and the major casino operators during that period by opening the

MGM Grand non-union (Alexander, 2002, Rothman, 2002). Therefore, MGM-

Mirage’s more aggressive stance in the negotiations may have just been a reflection of

Kerkorian’s more combative approach to labor-management relations.

In contrast, Park Place and Harrah's opted to negotiate separately, using a

quieter, more conciliatory approach to the negotiations. In other jurisdictions Harrah’s

has generally taken a strong stand against unionization and adopted a hard line at the

bargaining table. However, because it only owns two properties in Las Vegas, it may

have decided that it was in its own best interest to pursue a less aggressive role in the

2002 round of negotiations. Therefore, if the Culinary Union obtained a particularly

expensive contract, it would give Harrah’s a competitive advantage over the other

major casino operators, since its exposure to Las Vegas casino industry labor costs is

comparatively low (Alexander, 2005).

There are a variety of reasons why Park Place also decided to pursue a more

conciliatory strategy. First, in previous years Park Place has enjoyed a cooperative

relationship with the Culinary Union in Las Vegas. Secondly, at the time of the

negotiations it was carrying a large debt load and its financial condition was further

destabilized by the fallout from the 9/11 attacks.

The smaller gaming companies who operated casinos along the Strip waited

until the major operators had settled before entering into serious negotiations with
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Culinary Union. Traditionally in the Las Vegas casino industry, smaller operators

wait until larger operators settle with the union and then agree to contracts patterned

after those reached by the major operators. The one exception to this was the Boyd

Gaming Group, which owns one Strip property in addition to its multiple downtown

properties. Because it operated several downtown properties, the Boyd Gaming Group

negotiated with the downtown operators (Berns, 2002m).

Negotiations between the Culinary Union and the downtown and neighborhood

casino operators also did not begin until the Culinary Union had settled with the major

Strip operators. The Culinary Union hoped that the non-strip operators would sign

contracts patterned after those of the major Strip operators as they had in previous

years. However, the growing disparity between the fortunes of unionized Strip and

non-Strip properties in Las Vegas caused non-Strip operators to intensely resist the

Culinary Union’s efforts in 2002. In general, non-strip operators wanted contracts that

were significantly less expensive than those agreed to by their strip counterparts.

Going into the 2002 negotiations the non-strip operators were divided into

roughly three different camps. The first group adopted a very aggressive strategy with

the Culinary Union and demanded the following concessions: putting employees on an

inferior employer-run healthcare plan, an unlimited right to replace union workers

with subcontracted workers, the reduction of workers' shifts to as little as four hours,

the right to hire an unlimited numbers of part time workers, and the right to terminate

union contracts and workers' jobs if properties are sold. Furthermore, these properties

strongly resisted Culinary Union attempts to restrict GRAs workload. The Culinary

Union regarded these demands as entirely unreasonable (German, 2002a, German,

2002b, German 2002c, Simpson, 2002g).

There were a number of operators that pursued this strategy. Jackie Gaughan

was the only operator in this group who owned more than a single unionized property
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in Las Vegas.22 Cooperating with Jackie Gaughan at the beginning of the negotiations

were the owners of Binion’s Horseshoe, Fitzgerald’s, The Four Queens, and

Castaways. Not only did these operators demand significant contract concessions,

they engaged in heated rhetorical battles with the Culinary Union through the press

(German, 2002a, German, 2002b, German, 2002c, Simpson, 2002g, Wilhelm, 2004).

Boyd Gaming, which operated two unionized non-Strip properties, The

Freemont and The Main Street Station, adopted a more conciliatory approach to the

negotiations. HERE President John Wilhelm, who was the Culinary Union’s lead

negotiator credits this to the very positive relationship he had with Boyd’s

management team going into the negotiations (Wilhelm, 2004). However, the less

aggressive strategy pursued by the Boyd Gaming Group in the 2002 negotiations may

also be the result of the success Boyd Gaming’s non-strip properties have enjoyed

relative to other unionized casinos located off the strip (Rothman, 2003).

The third camp of non-strip casinos involved in the negotiations were the

independently owned Jerry’s Nugget and Golden Gate casinos, both of whom pursued

a strategy of waiting for the other non-strip properties to settle with the union and then

negotiating a contract patterned after those of the other non-strip properties. The final

unionized non-strip property, the Golden Nugget, was operated by MGM-Mirage and

settled at the same time as the other MGM-Mirage properties.

Therefore, Las Vegas’s Casino operators entered the 2002 round of contract

negotiations divided by the issues they felt were most compelling and the strategies

they thought they should pursue. This was partially caused by the diverse economic

circumstances faced by the different operators as well as by each operator’s unique

management style. These divisions were not new in Las Vegas’s casino industry,

rather, as indicated in the earlier discussion of the history of the industry’s labor-

22
Gaughan also ran The Plaza, El Cortez, The Las Vegas Club, and The Western.
 172

management relations, they have existed for the past 40 years, ever since the first

corporate owned casinos opened in the city. However, by failing to come together and

bargain as a group, the casino operators undermined their position vis-à-vis the

Culinary Union, which was able to whipsaw the casino operators. In the gaming

industry, because labor markets are localized and firms are site specific, it is to the

advantage of the casino operators within a particular area to coordinate their

bargaining in order to prevent from being whipsawed by the union (Cobble & Merrill,

1994). Perhaps, if the casino operators had been able to agree on a single strategy and

better coordinate among themselves in the 2002 negotiations they could have better

countered the Culinary Union’s contract campaign strategy.

Bargaining on the Strip

The initial meetings between the major Strip casino operators23 and the union

took place in the second and third weeks of April (Simpson, 2002c). The union's

initial proposal was for a two-year deal where employers would pay an extra 72.5

cents an hour per employee for each year of the contract, increasing by a total amount

of $1.45 by the last year of the contract (Berns, 2002c). Pretty much all of the first

year's 72.5 cent increase would go towards paying for members' health insurance, with
up to 70 cents of second year's raise also going towards members' health insurance.

The remainder of the annual increase not covering health benefits would go towards

members' pensions and/or increases in their hourly wages (Berns, 2002d). These

would be the largest annual increases in total compensation in the history of the union

(Berns, 2202g). Overall under the Culinary Union’s proposal employers' contributions

to the union health plan would increase to $2.92 from $2.22 per hour per employee in

the first year of the pact and then increase to $3.62 in the second year of the pact. The

Culinary union also insisted that new contracts include language placing restrictions
23
Harrah's, The Mandalay Resort Group, MGM-Mirage, as well as Park Place Entertainment
 173

on GRA workload (Berns, 2002e). Such language had been absent from the local’s

previous contracts (Pappageorge, 2003).

Park Place Entertainment was the first of the big-four Strip operators to offer a

counterproposal. Park Place Entertainment's offer consisted of a two and half year

proposal that increased employees' hourly compensation by $1.05. The offer did not

propose any new contract language dealing with the workload issue. Officials from

the Culinary Union stated to the media that this counter offer was a positive step

forward in the negotiations and said they would make a counter proposal in their next

meeting with Park Place Entertainment executives (Berns, 2002r).

MGM-Grand and The Mandalay Resort Group responded to the Culinary

Union offer with a counterproposal that increased employees' hourly compensation by

47 to 49 cents annually over five years. Mandalay Resort Group's Senior Vice-

President argued that the union's proposal was too expensive especially given that Las

Vegas's Gaming industry was still recovering from the effects of 9/11 (Berns, 2002g).

Although they negotiations negotiated together, MGM-Mirage and the Mandalay

Resort Group approached the GRA issue separately. MGM-Mirage said it was open

to negotiating about the issue, even though it argued that many of the Culinary

Union’s claims about the GRA's workload were false.

The Mandalay Resort Group held that the GRA workload issue was a phony

issue constructed by Culinary officials for their public relations campaign as well as

internal union electoral concerns, and refused to bargain over it. In the negotiations

themselves, the Mandalay Resort Group accused the union officials and GRAs of

lying about the extent of the GRAs workload and its impact on the GRAs health. The

Mandalay Resort Group also took out a full page add in the Las Vegas Review

Journal, to counteract the unions claims about GRA workload and its efforts to use the

GRA issue to win public sympathy in the negotiations (Berns, 2002r). In an interview
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HERE President John Wilhelm said that he thought that both MGM-Mirage and the

Mandalay Resort Group were trying to use the temporary impact of 9/11 as an excuse

to obtain a substandard contract from the Culinary Union, ensuring lower labor costs

long after the effects of 9/11 had worn off (Wilhelm, 2004).

This effort to refute GRAs' and union officials' claims about GRA workload

created a lot of tension at the negotiations as the GRAs that were on the bargaining

committee became very upset at what many of them perceived as a management effort

to brand them as liars. This effort by the Mandalay Resort Group was communicated

through the Culinary Union’s bargaining committee to the rank-and-file and facilitated

their mobilization campaign. This incident provides a good example of how the use of

a large and representative bargaining committee was beneficial to the Culinary Union

because it allows the local to rapidly and effectively communicate what is going on in

the negotiations to the rank-and-file (Berns 2002p, Wilhelm, 2004).

The aggressiveness of MGM-Mirage and The Mandalay Resort Group was

also reflected in their responses to the Culinary and Bartenders Unions' mobilization

and corporate campaigns. In one incident of employer retaliation, Al Williams, a lead

contract committee member at a Mandalay owned property, Circus-Circus, was beat

up by casino security guards and suspended along with several GRAs, while

participating in an EDR rally during their break. Williams, an African-American pot

washer, was leading a group of female GRAs in a chant about their contract demands

when they claim they were tackled by a group security guards, in a melee that

involved as many as 100 people. Williams suffered a fractured wrist and a dislocated

shoulder and five GRAs suffered unspecified injuries in the incident. Three of these

GRAs were part of the unions' bargaining committee. Williams and one of the GRAs

were hospitalized as a result of the melee. The Mandalay Resort Group claimed that

Williams had been asked to stop the rally and had refused and that such a rally was a
 175

violation of the Culinary Union’s contract with The Mandalay Resort Group. The

operator suspended Al Williams along with two of the GRAs, and charged Williams

with trespassing (Berns, 2002d, German, 2002d, Simpson, 2002x, German, 2002o,

Simpson, 2002v, Dalton, 2003).

HERE claimed that EDR rallies, such as the one lead by Al Williams, were

clearly not in violation of their contact. Furthermore, the union argued that it had

organized a previous rally in Circus-Circus's EDR two weeks earlier and had been

using them as part of their contract administration procedure previous to that, without

any complaints from management. The union put together a campaign in response to

the incident to win reinstatement for the suspended workers with full back pay and to

get the Mandalay Resort Group to drop their charges against Williams. In addition to

filing grievances over the issue, the union had the suspended workers lead their

contract committee into the negotiations with the Mandalay Resort Group the next day

and had all members of the bargaining committee wear shirts with pictures of the

injured workers in the negotiations. The union also fired battery complaints with the

police against the security officers.

The incident turned out to be a major mobilizing issue for the Culinary Union,

as many members, especially those who worked for The Mandalay Resort Group,

became more disenchanted with management. As a result of the Culinary Union's

efforts Williams and the two suspended GRAs were reinstated on May 17th. The

GRAs were reimbursed for income they lost as a result of their suspensions; however,

Al Williams was not reimbursed. Therefore, the union continued to pursue their

grievances against the Mandalay Resort Group to obtain back pay for Williams and to

have the incident stricken from the employees’ record. On May 23rd the Culinary

Union brought Reverend Jesse Jackson and a delegation from the Coalition of Black

Trade Unionists to meet with executive from the Mandalay Resort Group and demand
 176

that Williams as well as the suspended GRAs be made whole (Berns, 2002d, German,

2002d, Simpson, 2002x, German, 2002f, Simpson, 2002v, Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge,

2003).

As mentioned earlier, the management of MGM-Mirage and The Mandalay

Resort Group verbally sparred several times with the Culinary Union in the media.

Perhaps the most notorious incident was when MGM-Mirage Senior Vice-President

Alan Feldman, upset about the union campaign to notify travel agents and meeting

planners about the contract dispute, likened the Culinary Union to terrorists. Several

Culinary Union staff people reported that these comments were very alienating to the

union’s members (Dalton, 2003, Hughes, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003, Zeitz, 2003).

This part of the union's corporate campaign was also vigorously condemned by The

Mandalay Resort Group. In contrast, the responses of the management at Park Place

Entertainment and Harrah's were much more muted, with Park Place executives

emphasizing the progress they were making in their negotiations with the Culinary

Union. (Berns 2002a)

Around the end of April, casino operators began to seriously consider

contingency plans in case the Culinary Union did go on strike. Some casino

executives such as those from Harrah's and Park Place Entertainment downplayed the

chance of a strike, while others such as ones from The Mandalay Bay Resort Group

were much less dismissive of the possibility of a strike. However, none of the casino

executives nor union leaders thought a strike against one of the major casino operators

was likely (Berns, 2002n). According to one casino executive who asked to remain

anonymous, management's strike contingency plans consisted of using temporary

employment agencies to hire temporary replacement workers from other population

centers in the southwest such as Phoenix, Laughlin, and southern California. These

workers would be bused in and provided with housing protected by private security
 177

firms. Furthermore, casino operators considered hiring replacement workers from

non-union gaming facilities in the area and having managers do union members jobs,

including housekeeping (Berns, 2002n). Casino operators also began hiring more

workers in the weeks leading up to the contract expiration date in preparation for a

potential strike (Dalton, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003).

In response to the different counterproposals and tactics of the major casino

operators the union adopted a strategy that tried to divide the more conciliatory major

casino operators, (Park Place Entertainment and Harrah’s), from the more

confrontational ones, (The Mandalay Resort Group and MGM-Mirage), and settle

with the former more conciliatory operators first. The Culinary Union believed that

once it had obtained a more favorable deal from the more conciliatory casino

operators, the more combative operators would be less willing to endure a strike

because their competitors would be able to operate with limited disruptions. Therefore

after their initial meetings, Culinary Union negotiators refused to meet with

representatives from MGM-Mirage and The Mandalay Resort Group until it had

settled with Park Place and Harrah's. Mandalay Resort Group Chief Negotiator said in

the local evening paper The Las Vegas Sun "The union is shopping around to find the

best deal it can. When the industry does not bargain together, it unfortunately winds

up bargaining against itself." (German 2002q, German, 2002r).

As the May 16th strike vote approached rumors began to be reported in the

media that Park Place Entertainment was on the verge of reaching an agreement with

the union and that Harrah's was soon to follow. These rumors gained further

credibility when Culinary Union lead negotiator and in-coming secretary-treasurer, D.

Taylor, commented to the media on May 13 that the union had received "constructive"

proposals from both Harrah's and Park Place the week before that could lead to

contracts with both operators. Park Place's proposal increased their original offer to an
 178

increase in hourly compensation of 65 cents in the first year and 55 cents in the

following 18 months of a two-and-a-half year contract. Details on Harrah’s proposal

were not disclosed in the media. Around this time the Culinary Union offered a

counterproposal: a two year contract that would increase employees compensation by

65 cents in its first year and 75 cents in its second (German, 2002q, German, 2002r,

German, 2002s, Berns, 2002r).

During the negotiations with Park Place and Harrah’s, The Mandalay Bay

Resort Group and MGM-Mirage pursued both a public and behind the scenes strategy

that was aimed at encouraging Park Place and Harrah's to pursue a harder line in the

negotiations with the Culinary Union and dissuade the local from settling a contract

with the more conciliatory casino operators separately. The public aspect of this

campaign consisted of first offering a contract extension of one month and a revamped

counterproposal to the union that raised employees’ hourly compensation by $2.78

over the course of a five year deal. The operator's previous offer was a five year deal

that increased employees’ hourly compensation by about 47-49 cents annually over a

period of five years. The casino operators also curbed their rhetoric dealing with

employee healthcare premiums with the Mandalay Resort Group's chief negotiator

Mike Sloan saying that: "We want to make our position on health-care clear. We are

not trying to make the employees pay for their family coverage…We are trying to

make them understand it is an extraordinarily expensive benefit, which can only be

preserved if we work together." This offer was rejected by the Culinary Union.

HERE President Wilhelm described the proposal a "media stunt" and a "back door

attempt to cut benefits" for union members (German, 2002q, Berns, 2002s).

The Monday following the union's massive strike vote and rally on Thursday

May 16th, MGM-Mirage and The Mandalay Resort Group offered a second revamped

proposal that increased employees hourly compensation by $2.92 over the course of a
 179

five year deal. Although, the union publicly welcomed this offer saying to the press

that it was a constructive step in the right direction, it refused to negotiate with either

MGM-Mirage or the Mandalay Resort Group before its scheduled upcoming

negotiations with Park Place and Harrah’s on May 23rd. As it turned out the Culinary

Union settled with Park Place Entertainment and Harrah's that Thursday, obtaining

contracts that increased employee compensation by $3.23-and-a-half over five years,

considerably more than what MGM-Mirage and Mandalay Bay offered. The deals

reached with Park Place and Harrah’s also included strong language dealing with

GRA workload issues (Berns, 2002s, German, 2002q). After the news of the deal

reached the remaining gaming operators who had yet to settle, one executive, who

asked to remain anonymous exclaimed: "I would venture to say the game's over…I

doubt the union could have lasted five days if the major properties had stood together"

(Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002a).

Settlement with Major Strip Operators

The union began to reach settlements with the major Las Vegas casino

operators in the week following the May 16th strike vote. Although, Harrah’s and

Park Place may have already been making progress towards an agreement with the
Culinary Union, the May 16th rally demonstrated to all casino operators and other

stakeholders the high level of militancy that existed amongst union members at their

properties, and the high risk of a city-wide strike if the two sides failed to reach an

agreement. Without such a high-level of participation in the May 16th strike vote and
rally by the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file, and their overwhelming vote in favor of

giving local union the leaders the right to call a strike; the local would not have been

as successful in pressuring operators to reach an agreement with the local before the

contract expired on May 31. Several people interviewed for this case study that sat in

on the negotiations between Culinary Union and Harrah’s and Park Place said that
 180

after the May 16th strike vote and rally, employer representatives in the negotiations

became much more focused settling with the Culinary Union and avoiding a strike

even if it meant agreeing to the local’s contract terms. (Pappageorge 2003, Arguallo-

Kline 2003, Dalton 2003, Hughes 2003, Weiss 2003, Wilhelm 2004, Pappageorge

2005)

The first major Strip operator to settle with the Culinary Union was Park Place

Entertainment, who settled along with the Aztar Corp.24 on May 22nd. Harrah’s settled

with the Culinary Union the next day. As mentioned earlier these properties took a

generally less confrontational approach to the negotiations than MGM-Mirage and

The Mandalay Group. One reason that Harrah's may have settled first was that it

derived a smaller proportion of its overall annual EBITDA from the Las Vegas's

Gaming Industry than the other major gaming companies along the Strip. Since it is

likely that the first contracts in the 2002 round of negotiations would set the pattern for

the other Strip contracts, Harrah's had less of an incentive to hold down labor costs for

their Las Vegas operations and had an interest in increasing the labor costs of their

primary competitors the other large Strip casino operators. (Rothman, 2003). Park

Place, for its part, was deep in debt at the time of the negotiations creating an incentive

to settle with the Culinary Union and avoid a costly strike that could inhibit its ability

to meet its debt service requirements. The Culinary Union’s rank-and-file

mobilization effort was key in convincing Park Place that the local was prepared to

engage in an effective strike. Within a week of Park Place and Harrah's settlement

both The Mandalay Resort Group and MGM-Mirage agreed to substantially the same

contracts with the Culinary and Bartenders Unions on May 26th and 27th respectively

(Berns, 2002j, Berns, 2002k).

24
Aztar Corp., a mid-sized gaming operator that operates a single property along the strip: The
Tropicana, also settled with the Culinary Union immediately after Park Place settled
 181

The contracts called for five year deals that would cost casino operators an

additional $3.23 1/2 per hour per employee by the fifth year of the contract, the

greatest increase called for by a single contract in the history of the Culinary Union.

The annual breakdown of the increases are depicted in table 7.1:

Table 7.1 Annual Increase in total compensation called for in 2002 contract with
major strip operators:
1st year 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Accumulated 0.68 1/2 $1.48 1/2 $2.13 1/2 $2.68 1/2 $3.23 1/2
Increase
(Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002c)

Under the new contract non-tipped workers only receive about half the raises

that tipped employees receive. Furthermore, the contract guaranteed premium-free

family healthcare for Culinary Union members without decreasing the quality of the

coverage. Officials from the Culinary Union estimated that contributions to the union

health care plan will absorb as much as 61.8% of the increased casino compensation,

or $2 of the $3.23 1/2 payable in the fifth year.

In addition the new contracts contained new language specifically dealing with

GRA workload. This language was also added to the contracts for properties owned

by Harrah's and MGM-Mirage that were not involved in the 2002 round of contract

negotiations. The provisions included a freeze on the number rooms cleaned by each

GRA during the life of the deal, a reduction in the number of rooms cleaned by

housekeepers on checkout days, the development of a formula for the Rio and the Park

Place Entertainment owned hotels that will cut the number of standard rooms cleaned

by a housekeeper who also has to clean suites, a reduction in the workload of

housekeepers who have to travel between two floors in the course of a day and the

creation of special teams to deal with the clean up of potentially hazardous materials

(Pappageorge, 2003, Pierce, 2002, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002c).

 182

On June 6th, members of the Culinary Union voted to ratify the contracts with

MGM-Mirage, The Mandalay Resort Group, Park Place Entertainment, Harrah's, and

Aztar by a margin of 2,003 to 36. The vote doubled as a solidarity rally for union

members who worked in the downtown and neighborhood casinos, which had not

settled with the union by that time. This was part of the union's solidarity campaign

between rank-and-filers from casinos that had already settled with the union and those

that had not. The contract negotiations for the downtown and neighborhood properties

will be discussed in greater detail in the next section (Simpson, 2002e).

Settling with the major casino properties was important because, historically,

once the union had agreed to contracts with the major casino operators the smaller

casino operators in Las Vegas tended to agree to contracts patterned on ones

previously settled by the union. In 2002 this pattern held for the independent Strip

operators, however, downtown and neighborhood casino operators resisted union

efforts to apply the strip settlement to them, citing the growing disparity between the

financial well being of the Strip operators and the downtown as well as the unionized

neighborhood casinos. The downtown and neighborhood casino operators argued that

they could not afford the contracts agreed to by the major Strip operators. This

resistance led to an acrimonious round of bargaining between downtown operators and

the Culinary Union in 2002. Because the Culinary Union’s previous contract with all

of the properties involved in the 2002 negotiations expired at the end of May, it had

very little time to negotiate with the other casino operators after settling with the last

of the major Strip operators. Therefore, it negotiated one month contract extensions

covering all the remaining operators who had not settled by the end of May (Smith,

2002f).
 183

Negotiations and Settlement with Downtown and Neighborhood Casinos

After the Culinary Union settled with most of the major Strip operators they

initially proposed that the downtown contracts ought to be patterned on the Strip

contracts (Simpson, 2002h). In response, downtown operators almost universally

argued that the contract with the major strip operators was too expensive and that the

Culinary Union, by proposing to extend it to downtown and neighborhood properties

was ignoring the growing economic disparity between the Strip properties and the

downtown as well as older neighborhood casinos. However, in spite of their unified

reaction to the Culinary Union’s initial proposal the downtown and neighborhood

casinos pursued a variety of different strategies in the rest of the negotiations

(Simpson, 2002h)

Several of the properties negotiated together and hired attorney Greg Kamer as

their representative in the 2002 round of negotiations. These properties were: The

Plaza, El Cortez, The Las Vegas Club, The Western, Binion's Horseshoe, Fitzgerald's

and The Four Queens. Castaways was represented by their own lawyer, Sal Gugino,

but they also bargained with the properties represented by Greg Kamer. Of these

properties The Plaza, El Cortez, The Las Vegas Club, and The Western, were all

owned by Jackie Gaughan. The rest of the casinos in the group were owned by casino

operators with only a single property under contract with the Culinary Union in Las

Vegas. These casino operators initially took a confrontational stance with the

Culinary Union, and engaged in heated rhetorical battles with the union in the process

(German, 2002a, German, 2002b, German, 2002c, Simpson, 2002g, Wilhelm, 2004).

In contrast, Boyd Gaming adopted a much more conciliatory and less public

approach to the negotiations. In statements to the press both sides emphasized the

constructive efforts made by each other in the negotiations. Wilhelm in an interview

said that the more positive bargaining atmosphere was the result of a wider
 184

cooperative relationship the two parties enjoyed preceding the negotiations (Wilhelm,

2004). During the 2002 negotiations Boyd Gaming owned two downtown casinos, the

Main Street Station and The Fremont, it also owned one older Strip property, The

Stardust. Boyd Gaming negotiated for all of these properties together.

The remaining downtown and neighborhood properties involved in the

negotiations were the independently owned Golden Gate and Jerry's Nugget. These

two properties opted to wait for the contract talks with the other downtown and

neighborhood casinos to conclude, and then negotiate a contract patterned after those

of the other properties (German, 2002a, Simpson, 2002i, Simpson, 2002j, Wilhelm,

2004).

While the contract negotiations between the Culinary Union and Boyd Gaming

progressed smoothly, those between the two locals and the casino operators

represented by Kamer had bogged down by mid-June to a point where both sides

publicly suggested that there was a good chance of a strike. In response to the locals'

efforts to extend the Strip contract to the downtown and neighborhood casinos, Kamer

put forward a counter proposal that was described by HERE president John Wilhelm's

as basically "gutting" the Culinary Union contracts. The counterproposal offered by

Kamer included several provisions which guaranteed that it would be unacceptable to

the Culinary Union. These provisions included: that employees be put on inferior

company healthcare plans, an unlimited right to replace union workers with

subcontracted workers, the reduction of workers' shifts to as little as four hours, the

right to hire an unlimited numbers of part time workers, and the right to terminate

union contracts and workers' jobs if properties are sold. Union officials reacted very

strongly against the counterproposal and accused Kamer of trying to provoke a strike

(German, 2002a, Norman, 2002, Wilhelm, 2004).

 185

According to reports in both the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas

Sun, negotiations between the Culinary Union and the downtown and neighborhood

casino operators began to move forward when Fitzergerald’s pulled Kamer as their

lead negotiator on June 18th and Boyd Gaming agreed to a request by the Culinary

Union to help broker a deal between the other downtown and neighborhood casino

operators and the two locals. Executives from Fitzgerald’s parent company Majestic

Investor Holdings said they would negotiate directly with the Culinary Union after

becoming alarmed at the escalating rhetoric used by Kamer and the two locals in the

negotiations. They were also concerned about their employees’ strong negative

reaction to Kamer's counterproposal. Kamer argued that Majestic Holdings was able

to better afford the Culinary Union's contract demands because it had other gaming

properties outside of Nevada while his remaining clients were concentrated in Las

Vegas (Simpson, 2002k, German, 2002f).

With a week and a half left before the downtown and neighborhood casino

contracts expired on July 1st, both casino operators and union leaders made repeated

statements to the press that a strike was very likely. Although both the Culinary

Union and Boyd Gaming reported making significant progress in negotiations,

reaching agreement on everything except wages and benefits, the local and the

properties represented by Kamer still had not come any closer to a settlement. The

two sides still had not come to an agreement on issues such as subcontracting, use of

part-time workers, and flexibility in the length of workers' shifts. The inability to

make any progress with the properties represented by Kamer made it difficult for the

unions to reach a deal with the more conciliatory casino operators, (Majestic Holdings

and Boyd Gaming), because of these operators’ concerns about being undercut if the

properties represented by Kamer obtained less expensive contracts from the union.

Furthermore, on June 27th the Culinary Union announced it would not consider
 186

granting another contract extension to casino operators that had not reached a

settlement with them by the time their contracts expired on July 1st, further increasing

the likelihood of a strike (Simpson, 2002l, Norman, 2002, German, 2002h).

Talks downtown began to make progress when Boyd Gaming tentatively

agreed to a scaled back version of the Strip contract proposed by the Culinary Union

on June 23rd and began to lobby other downtown casino operators to get behind the

proposal as well. The June 21st downtown rally, drawing around 12,000 protesting

Culinary Union members to the Fremont Street experience, may have been

instrumental in convincing Boyd Gaming, not only to agree to a tentative contract, but

also pressure other operators to settle with the union. Boyd Gaming was anxious to

avoid a strike at the other downtown properties because the close proximity of all the

casinos downtown made it likely that a strike at a small number of these properties

would significantly cut into the revenues of all the casinos.

The Culinary Union’s mobilizing efforts made it clear to Boyd Gaming that a

strike was likely if it and the other casino operators did not settle. These efforts began

to bear fruit by June 29th when it was reported in the Las Vegas Sun that the El

Cortez, the Four Queens, the Plaza, and Fitzgerald's had dropped Kamer as their

negotiator and joined with Boyd Gaming and agreed to the offer the union bargaining

committee had put forward on June 23rd.25 All of these properties, except for the

Plaza, were able to finalize agreements with the union negotiating committee on June

30th in the final hours before their contracts expired. At the last minute Jerry's Nugget

agreed to a contact that was substantially the same as the other downtown properties

who had settled with the union earlier that night. (Associated Press, 2002a, Associated

Press, 2002b).

25
It is interesting to note that the Plaza, El Cortez, The Western, and Las Vegas Club were all owned
by the same person, Jackie Gaughan.
 187

The new downtown contracts covering employees at Main Street Station, The

Fremont, El Cortez, Four Queens, Fitzgerald’s, and Jerry's Nugget were similar to the

agreements that the Culinary Union had reached with the Strip Casinos (including the

new language related to the housekeepers' workload) except that it allowed the non-

Strip properties to delay paying for six months half the annual increase dedicated

toward wages, pensions, and job training called for the by the Strip contract. For

example, according to their new contract, Strip operators agreed to pay an extra 60

cents per hour in the second year of their contracts. If the union health and welfare

fund trustees decided 30 cents of the second year increase needed to go toward health

care, the remaining 30 cents would go toward wages, pensions and job training.

Therefore, according to the tentative agreement, downtown operators would pay an

extra 30 cents for health coverage, but would pay only 15 cents for wages, pensions

and job training for the first six months of the year. They would pay the full amount

the second half of the year (Simpson, 2002m).

Overall, the contract would likely cost casino operators an additional $2.20 per

hour per employee by its fifth and final year (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002c).

Union officials estimated that contributions to the unions' health care plans would

absorb as much as 91% of the additional casino payments in the fifth year, or $2 of the

$2.20 increase (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002c). The annual increase in total

compensation per worker is shown in table 7.2.

Table 7.2 Annual cumulative increase in compensation called for by the 2002-
2007 contract for downtown and neighborhood casinos with the exception of the
Golden Nugget.
1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year

$0.68 $0.98 $1.28 $1.72 $2.20

(Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2002c)

 188

Downtown tipped workers would receive an even smaller increase, with

operators only responsible for paying half of the amount they pay for non-tipped

workers' wages, pensions and job training. Gregory Kamer, who at this point was

only bargaining on behalf of The Las Vegas Club, The Western, and Binion's

Horseshoe estimated that the locals' proposal was 30% less expensive than the Strip

contracts (Simpson, 2002m).

While the contract talks with the downtown and neighborhood casinos were

going down to the wire, the Culinary Union began its 33-hour picket line downtown,

counting down the time before the contract extensions with the neighborhood and

downtown casinos expired. The 33-hour picket line drew about 1,000 union members,

demonstrating to downtown and neighborhood casino operators what a major strike

would be like if they did not settle with the union. As each property began to settle,

the local would pull their picketers from that property and move them to other

properties which had not settled with the union (Pierce, 2003, Simpson, 2002p).

As the downtown and neighborhood contracts expired at 12:01am on July 1st

the Culinary Union delayed striking and continued bargaining with the remaining

properties without an agreement. However, the Culinary Union would continue their

informational picketing outside those properties that had not settled with the union.

The marathon bargaining session lasted 17 ½ hours and finally ended at 6:30 in the

morning on July 1st, with all but two properties reaching settlements with the union,
The Western and The Golden Gate.

The first properties to settle were the El Cortez and the Plaza, who settled on

tentative deals that contained the same terms as the those agreed to by The Main Street

Station, Fitzgerald’s, The Fremont and The Four Queens. The Las Vegas Club settled

next, followed by Castaways, and Binion's Horseshoe. It was reported in the Las

Vegas Sun that both Boyd Gaming and Michael Gaughan helped the union reach a
 189

settlement with the properties that had been holding out. Overall, the contracts

reached by these properties were very similar to the ones already reached by the other

downtown casinos. The Plaza reached an agreement substantially the same as the

ones agreed to by the other downtown properties. While the Las Vegas Club's

contract allows the casino to delay making annual compensation increases by about

six months. Castaways and Binion's Horseshoe had the least expensive contracts,

allowing the properties to delay their annual increases for 11 months (Simpson, 2002q,

Simpson, 2002r, German, 2002i, Las Vegas Review Journal, 2002c).

In the midst of the June 30th -July 1st marathon bargaining session Michael

Gaughan announced, that for reasons unrelated to the contract negotiations, that his

father Jackie Gaughan had decided to close the Western on September 1st 2002.

Michael Gaughan announced that his father was closing the property because it was no

longer "economically viable" and no degree of union concessions would keep the

property open. However, later that day Michael Gaughan announced that his father

was having second thoughts about closing The Western and in cooperation with the

Culinary Union was going to explore options for keeping the casino open. This

strange turn of events culminated on Tuesday July 2nd when Jackie and Michael

Gaughan agreed to a contract substantially the same as the one covering the Las Vegas
Club. In an interview, a local gaming industry expert who asked to remain

anonymous, attributed this peculiar scenario to Jackie Gaughan’s failing health. The

Culinary Union members at the Western as well as at all the other downtown and

neighborhood properties except for the Golden Gate voted 808-3 on July 3rd to ratify

the new contract (Associated Press, 2002c, Associated Press, 2002d, Simpson, 2002r,

German 2002j, Las Vegas Review Journal, 2002).

By the afternoon of July 1st only the Golden Gate had failed to settle with the

Culinary Union. At 6 pm on July 1st all but two union members walked off the job at
 190

the Golden Gate after the union negotiators decided that the Golden Gate co-owner

and lead negotiator, Marc Brandenburg, would not budge from his refusal to continue

funding the union members' healthcare plan and the union called a strike at the

property (Associated Press, 2002e, Associated Press, 2002c, German, 2002k,

Simpson, 2002s).

The key issue in the negotiations with The Golden Gate was the cost of the

contract demanded by Culinary Union, which in turn was driven by the cost of the

union healthcare plan. Already the Golden Gate had failed to pay their workers a $.40

raise in December 2001 that was called for by the previous contract. Marc

Brandenburg claimed that the Golden Gate could not afford this increase, because of

the casino's poor financial condition. In 2001 the casino had a net operating loss of

$300,000. Furthermore, Marc Brandenburg claimed that he and the other Golden Gate

owner Craig Ghelfi had forgone any salary, as owners of the Golden Gate, for a

"substantial" period because of the property's poor financial performance. The owners

offered to open their books to prove their claims (Associated Press, 2002e, Associated

Press, 2002c, German, 2002k, Simpson, 2002s).

The strike continued through July 9th and the Las Vegas Review-Journal

reported that it had a deep impact on the casino's business leaving its gaming area
empty. Of the Golden Gate's 380 workers, 188 are union members and all but 2 of

these union members honored the picket lines. The Golden Gate remained open

during the strike by having managerial staff, non-union workers and temporary

replacements fill in for its union workers. However, some of its facilities, such as one

of its two restaurants, remained closed throughout the strike (Simpson, 2002r,

Simpson, 2002u).

The Golden Gate settled with the Culinary Workers' and Bartenders Unions on

July 9th at 7:30 pm. The contract was similar to other non-Strip contracts except that
 191

it called for the Golden Gate to pay an extra $2.00 per worker per hour by the fifth

year of the contract.26 However, if it was determined that either the union pension or

health funds need money, the Golden Gate must contribute an additional 20 cents per

hour per worker to the funds. Furthermore, the contract called for the Golden Gate to

pay a lump sum to workers who had not received the December wage increase that

was called for in the previous contract. Finally, if the operators of the Golden Gate

did not live up to the contract, the contract allowed the unions to use an accelerated

enforcement provision, which let them go to district court to mandate contract

compliance. The contract was unanimously approved by HERE members that same

day. The vote was 118-0 (Simpson, 2002t).

Conclusion

Although the Culinary Union did not reach all of its major goals in the 2002

round of contract negotiations, it did accomplish its two primary ones: reducing the

workload of GRAs and protecting the quality of its healthcare plan without having to

introduce premiums. The ability of the Culinary Union to achieve its major goals was

the product of its own and casino operators’ strategic choices, as well as the

bargaining context in which they found themselves. In the negotiations the Culinary
Union not only benefited from short strategies designed specifically for the

negotiations, but also from long term strategies that have increased its ability to

mobilize its members and put together effective corporate pressure campaigns.

Therefore, when examining at the 2002 contract negotiations it is important to place it

in a wider historical context as well as look at in terms of the Culinary Union’s

bargaining environment. The conclusion of this case study will examine this idea in

greater detail.

26
The other non-Strip contracts call for casino to pay an extra $2.20 by their fifth year.
Chapter VIII: Conclusion & Analysis

Introduction

The Culinary Union’s success in the 2002 round of contract negotiations was

the result of both strategic and contextual factors. The local employed a strategy that

enabled it to take advantage of contextual variables in order to build power vis-à-vis

the Las Vegas casino operators that were its counterparts in the negotiations. This

strategy relied on the mobilization of rank-and-file members in order to create a

legitimate strike threat and publicizing this threat to the relevant stakeholders in the

negotiations. The external and internal contextual factors the Culinary Union faced in

the negotiations played an important role in determining this strategy’s success.

By linking the interaction between union strategy and context to industrial

relations outcome this case study builds upon the union revitalization tradition in the

industrial relations literature. One of the definitive precepts of union revitalization

research is that within the current industrial relations context there are opportunities

that unions can strategically exploit in order to influence industrial relations outcomes.

Union revitalization scholars further argue that unions that are particularly adept at

adopting the correct set of strategies in a given context will be able to thrive, even in

today’s inhospitable industrial relations climate. Therefore, because the Culinary

Union is one of the few examples of such a union, it is important for industrial

relations scholars, trade unionists, as well as anyone else interested in the survival of

the American labor movement to develop a solid understanding of the factors which

have contributed to its success. Although context has played an integral role in the

success of the Culinary Union, there are also elements to the local’s story, which could

provide useful lessons to other unions that are struggling with their own revitalization

efforts.

192
 193

Industrial Relations Context

This case study recognizes the importance of both context and strategy in

determining industrial relations outcomes. It breaks the context of the 2002

negotiations into two linked categories: variables that are largely external to the

Culinary Union and those that largely arise from within the local. External context

primarily refers to characteristics of the principle players in Las Vegas’s Gaming

industry other than the Culinary Union, such as employers, consumers, investors, as

well as the political, social, and political traits of the Las Vegas metropolitan area and

casino industry. Internal context refers to the Culinary Union’s organizational

structure, practices, long-term strategies in the period leading up to the 2002

negotiations. These internal and external contextual factors had a profound influence

on the strategies the Culinary Union employed in its 2002 comprehensive contract

campaign. For example, external factors such as the aversion on the part of tourists to

vacation in Las Vegas during a major strike made casino operators particularly

vulnerable to this kind of labor action. This was also amplified by the fact that several

major Las Vegas casino operators were significantly in debt, which made them and

their creditors particularly concerned about how a strike could disrupt casino revenue.

In terms of internal context, this case study focuses on the revitalization

process of the local in the fifteen years prior to the 2002 negotiations and its influence

on the Culinary Union’s comprehensive campaign capabilities. For example, as a

result of specific long-term strategies and practices the local pursued as part of its

revitalization process, it enjoyed a highly developed rank-and-file mobilization and

corporate campaign capabilities by the time of the 2002 negotiations. If the union had

not gone through this revitalization process prior to the negotiations it would not have

had the organizational capacity to successfully mount such an ambitious

comprehensive contract campaign.

 194

This case study shows how the Culinary Union adopted a set of strategies that

were well matched to the industrial relations context it faced in Las Vegas’s gaming

industry, and how by using this set of strategies the Culinary Union increased its

collective bargaining power in the 2002 round of contract negotiations. The

effectiveness of the Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization and corporate

pressure strategies is demonstrated by the fact that in both the Strip and downtown

casino markets, casino operators began to settle with the union after it had engaged in

large public rallies, such as the May 16th strike and the June 21st Freemont St. rally.

Rank-and-file participation in both of these events exceeded the expectations of both

union officials and casino operators (Berns, 2003, Pappageorge, 2003). After the May

16th strike vote, Culinary Union officials described a marked change in the tone of

negotiations at the bargaining table with negotiators for the casino operators becoming

much more willing to accede to the union’s demands (Pappageorge, 2004, Wilhelm,

2004).

The effect of the June 21st rally on Freemont St. in downtown Las Vegas was

even more dramatic, with one of the leading downtown casino operators, Boyd

Gaming, stepping forward and offering to cajole other operators to settle with the

union after the rally. It is important to point out that these large rallies were not the
only demonstrations of rank-and-file militancy that occurred during the negotiations.

There were numerous smaller demonstrations both on the Strip and in downtown Las

Vegas. Furthermore, the Culinary Union used a variety of inside tactics to mobilize

members and to signal their militancy to casino operators. These tactics included

break room rallies, delegations to management, and more typical solidarity actions

such as the wearing of union pins in support of workers who had faced reprisals from

management for their union activism.

 195

Thus, Culinary Union strategies, both long-term and short term, have had a

profound influence on contract bargaining outcomes in Las Vegas’s casino industry.

Therefore, strategies employed by the Culinary Union do play an important role in

determining industrial relations outcomes in Las Vegas’s gaming industry, and the

success of the local can not be totally ascribed to favorable external contextual factors.

These strategies have an interactive relationship with both the external and internal

contexts the union faced in the negotiations.

Union Revitalization

By focusing on the strategies the Culinary Union used in its 2002 contract

campaign as well as the influence of long-term union strategies on the negotiations,

this case study builds upon ideas introduced by the union revitalization branch of the

industrial relations literature. As discussed previously, the union revitalization

research focuses on the role union strategies can play in influencing industrial

relations outcomes (Hickey, 2003, Behrens et al. 2004, Turner, 2005). This case study

relates most directly to three strands of the union revitalization literature: 1) case

studies of comprehensive contract campaigns, 2) strategic integration, 3) the

organizing model as it relates to collective bargaining.

Case Studies of Comprehensive Contract Campaigns

Most of the union revitalization literature covering union collective bargaining

functions have been case studies of union comprehensive campaigns. Numerous

examples of case studies were discussed in the literature review of this thesis. Despite

the large amount of research in this area, this particular case study still makes several

important contributions.

First, this case study shows how an ideal comprehensive contract campaign

plays out in the context of Las Vegas casino industry. As was discussed in the
 196

preceding section in this chapter the context of Las Vegas’s gaming industry as well as

internal characteristics of the Culinary Union itself left an important imprint on the

comprehensive contract campaign both in terms of the strategic choices made by the

Culinary Union and the effectiveness of the strategy the union employed. It is

important to understand the interactive relationship between context and union

strategy because of the success of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas. In a period of

overall decline in the American labor movement, the Culinary Union stands out as an

example of how a private sector union can thrive in an environment otherwise

inhospitable to collective bargaining. As casino style gambling is making inroads into

almost every state in the United States, it is increasingly important for union leaders in

other jurisdictions to learn from the success of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas.

This case study is also relatively unique because most other case studies of

comprehensive contract campaigns examine instances of almost complete breakdown

in relations between a union and an employer. In fact, the vast majority of case

studies examine instances where there is considerable doubt as to whether the union

will continue to represent the employees of the particular employer. The only

exception to this, to my knowledge, is Matthew O’Malley’s study of the 1997 IBT

strike against UPS. (O’Malley 1999) In the case of the 2002 contract negotiations

between the Culinary Union and Las Vegas casino operators, the continued existence

of a collective bargaining relationship between the two parties was never in doubt.

This is important because, as Robert Hickey (1993) correctly points out in his

case study of PACE’s comprehensive contract campaign against Crown Petroleum, if

unions are going to regularly utilize the kinds of tactics and strategies advocated by

many revitalization scholars they will have to learn how to use them in situations other

than the most extreme examples of industrial conflict. Furthermore, as demonstrated

by this thesis, comprehensive campaigns are most effective when preparations for
 197

them begin at least a year in advance. However, union leaders do not often how

antagonistic negotiations will be that far ahead of time, and there are plenty of

examples within the past twenty years of comprehensive campaigns that failed

because preparations began too late in the negotiations for them to be effective.

Therefore, in many cases unions need to begin planning for a comprehensive

campaign before they know what kind resistance they can expect from employers in

the upcoming negotiations. For example, preparations for the Culinary Union’s 2002

comprehensive contract campaign began more than a year before the negotiations

actually began.

This study also differs from other case studies of comprehensive contract

campaigns because it examines a union local that has made significant progress in its

revitalization process, giving it the organizational capacity to successfully carry out

strategies and tactics beyond the means of most other locals. In comparison most

other previous studies of comprehensive contract campaigns have looked at unions

that have not or are just beginning to go through there revitalizing process, usually as

part of the comprehensive campaign that is under study.

By examining a revitalized union local, this case study provides answers to

several important questions relating to comprehensive contract campaigns. First, this

thesis demonstrates that locals can continue to increase their overall rank-and-file

mobilization capacity, even after mounting a resource intensive comprehensive

campaigns in previous rounds of negotiations. This means that such tactics do not

necessarily burn out rank-and-file activists and union staff.

Furthermore, it demonstrates that such campaigns do not necessarily cause

irreparable damage to long term labor-management relations. In spite of putting

together a progressively more ambitious comprehensive campaign for all rounds of

negotiations during the 1990s the Culinary Union has been able to maintain several
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cooperative efforts with casino operators such as the Culinary Academy and various

initiatives to decriminalize casino style gaming in jurisdictions where it had been

previously illegal.

This case study also provides insight into how the organizing, political and

contract administration policies of a union further along in the revitalizing process

interact with each other and with the union’s contract bargaining activities. It shows

that as a result of previous coordinated initiatives in these areas, the Culinary Union

has retained staff and rank-and-file leaders that are well versed in the types of tactics

that are common in comprehensive contract campaigns, thereby increasing the union’s

ability to successfully carry out its ambitious contract campaign strategy.

Furthermore, as a result of previous corporate campaign activities the Culinary

Union has a more experienced research department that had already developed

relationships with a variety of stakeholders relevant to the negotiations, thereby

increasing their credibility with these audiences. It also shows that as a result of

previous strikes and other rank-and-file intensive and corporate campaign pressure

tactics, the Culinary Union has earned significant credibility with casino operators and

other relevant stakeholders regarding their threats to use similar tactics in the 2002

contract negotiations. Finally, this thesis describes how the organizing model of

contract administration can increase a union’s capacity to mobilize members for

upcoming rounds of negotiations.

Strategic Integration

Strategic integration is a relatively new strand of the union revitalization

literature. This area of the literature describes how unions coordinate their political,

collective bargaining, and external organizing activities, in order to increase their

overall strategic effectiveness (Hickey, 2003, Katz et al. 2003). The strategic

integration literature also suggests that unions can better sustain their revitalization
 199

efforts, if they approach their efforts comprehensively taking into account all the

aforementioned areas of activity (Hickey, 2003)

This case study describes how the Culinary Union benefited from the

coordination of its political, external organizing, and collective bargaining strategies

both in terms of making its strategic initiatives in these areas more effective and in

creating sufficient organizational capacity to sustain its revitalization process. For

example, the union was able to successfully organize new casinos by bargaining for

neutrality and cooperating with the gaming industries on political initiatives in other

jurisdictions outside of Las Vegas. Furthermore, by pursuing a number of

comprehensive initiatives focusing on rank-and-file leadership development and

participation, the Culinary Union has developed an organizational culture that

facilitates member mobilization in its political, external organizing, and collective

bargaining efforts. More specifically, the Culinary Union’s contract administration,

political, and external organizing strategies all created avenues for the members to

take positions of responsibility in the local and for union staff and leaders to identify,

recruit, and train rank-and-file leaders. As described earlier in this case study,

Culinary Union efforts to increase rank-and-file participation in one area of union

activity complemented similar efforts in other areas, thereby creating an overall

organizational culture that placed a high value on rank-and-file involvement in the

union. Because of the comprehensive nature of these efforts to increase rank-and-file

participation, this organizational culture was diffused throughout the union, instead of

just being isolated in one area of union activity or one level of the local’s hierarchy.

This created the organizational momentum necessary to make additional

organizational reforms further facilitating rank-and-file participation, leadership

development, and mobilization. For example, the Culinary Union’s contract

administration procedure helped to mobilize members to become involved in the

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union’s external organizing campaigns. In turn, members who became involved in the

local’s external organizing campaigns were radicalized, as they witnessed employer

reprisals against casino workers who were attempting to organize, and therefore

became more active participants in the union as a result (Fantasia & Voss, 2004).

In the 2002 comprehensive contract campaign, the strategic integration

initiatives across all areas of union activity benefited the Culinary Union in a variety

of ways. For example, as mentioned above, as a result of its contract administration

procedure the Culinary Union was able to rely on a deep pool of capable to rank-and-

file leaders in its efforts to mobilize its members for the 2002 negotiations.

Furthermore, the union contract administration structure also gave union leaders a

reliable way through which they could communicate with members. Finally, as a

result of previous political efforts, local and state political leaders were sympathetic to

the union in the negotiation process.

By describing how the Culinary Union has benefited from the comprehensive

coordination of its own strategies this case study provides additional evidence

supporting Hickey’s (1993) hypothesis that strategic integration is a primary requisite

for sustained union revitalization. In his case study of PACE’s comprehensive

contract campaign he argues that “lasting union vitality requires certain sustaining

mechanisms such as organizational transformations and other appropriate strategic

innovations: integration of union strategies and other complimentary organizational

transformations are examples of these.” He argues that in order to achieve sustained

revitalization, unions must take a comprehensive approach to their strategic planning

and integrate their political, external organizing, and collective bargaining activities,

as well as undergo the necessary cultural and structural organizational transformations

to support their new strategic focus. He argues that without coordinating these
 201

strategies, unions will be unable to institute the cultural and structural changes

necessary to sustain revitalization (Hickey, 2003).

This study contributes to the strategic integration literature in a variety of other

ways as well. For example, this study examines contract administration as it is related

to strategic integration of union activities. Although contract administration is often

treated as a part of a union’s collective bargaining activities, it has been ignored by

previous strategic integration research. These previous studies have only examined

union contract bargaining strategies when discussing their collective bargaining

activities. However, contract administration is arguably one of the most important

functions of a union. Unlike contract negotiations which occur every few years,

contract administration activities are ongoing and thus are a much more integral way

in which members form opinions about the union. This is especially true in

workforces plagued by a high rate of turnover, like the casino industry. Furthermore,

contract administration is one of the most directly visible services a union can perform

for its members. A variety of studies have found that union members place a

particularly high value on a union’s contract administration functions and union

members’ subjective evaluations of their union’s grievance procedures have a strong

positive correlation with their overall union commitment and participation (Kochan,

1979, Gallagher & Clark, 1989, Clark, Gallagher, & Pavlak, 1990, Eaton, Gordon, &

Keefe, 1992, Bemmels, 1995a).

This case study not only includes contract administration in its analysis, but

also argues that the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy forms the

foundation of its rank-and-file mobilization efforts for its contract bargaining, external

organizing, and political strategies. Culinary Union officials consistently credited the

Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy as one of, if not the most, important

factor influencing the Culinary Union’s remarkable rank-and-file mobilization

 202

capacity. The local’s contract administration process serves as the primary means

through which the union identifies, recruits, and trains rank-and-file leaders to take

important roles in union campaigns. Eventually, many of these rank-and-file leaders

become part of the union’s staff to work as union representatives, organizers, or in a

variety of other capacities. Secondly, the union uses its contract administration

procedure to communicate with its general membership and encourage them to think

of their workplace issues in a collective rather individualistic manner. Finally, the

contract administration structure acts as the primary communication conduit between

rank-and-file members and the local’s staff and leadership.

This case study is also unique among the strategic integration literature

because, as discussed above, the Culinary Union is much further along in their

revitalization process than any other union locals that have been subjects of previous

case studies. Neither PACE nor the IBT, which were subject of Hickey’s (2003) and

O’Malley’s (1999) case studies respectively, have been able to comprehensively

integrate their organizing, collective bargaining, and political strategies. The CWA,

which is the subject of Katz et. al.’s (2003) study has made more progress in this area

than either PACE or the IBT, however, it still has not integrated these strategies in a

consistent manner, which is one of the main points made in their article. Furthermore,

the case studies by Katz et. al., and O’Malley examine their subjects on a national

level, while this case study focuses on a local union organization.

Contract Administration and the Organizing Model

A primary argument of this thesis is that the Culinary Union’s representation

activities between rounds of negotiations formed a key element of its long-term rank-

and-file mobilization strategy. The large part of these non-contract bargaining

representational activities fall in to the category of contract administration. In other

words, the Culinary Union’s contract administration strategies, in conjunction with its
 203

contract bargaining, external organizing, and political strategies, greatly increased the

Culinary Union’s rank-and-file mobilization capacity. Although it looks at these other

areas of union activity in conjunction with contract administration, this case study

concentrates on contract administration because of the central role it plays in the

Culinary Unions rank-and-file mobilization process.

The Culinary Union follows a strategy based on the organizing model of

contract administration. This means that the Culinary Union’s contract administration

strategy emphasizes rank-and-file member involvement in and responsibility over the

contract administration process. It further means that the union emphasizes dealing

with grievances on a collective rather than individual basis. This case study describes

how the Culinary Union, by using the organizing model of contract administration,

created an organizational culture and structure that lead to increases in the quality and

quantity of rank-and-file participation in the union and how this benefited the union in

its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign. As a result of the Culinary Union’s

organizing model of contract administration, not only were rank-and-file members

more active but they learned to perceive their workplace issues collectively and

develop the skills necessary to begin to address them in this way.

As discussed in the literature review, industrial relations scholars have found

strong correlations between the organizing model of unionism and increased rank-and-

file participation in the union (Fosh, 1993, Bronfenbrenner & Juravich, 1995, Tetrick,

1995, Bacharach et. al. 2001, Snape & Redman, 2004a, Snape & Redman, 2004b). By

describing the effect of the Culinary Union’s contract administration policy on rank-

and-file mobilization for its 2002 comprehensive contract campaign, this case study

provides further evidence supporting the conclusions reached by these previous

studies. Furthermore, since studies of union participation and commitment tend to be

quantitative statistical studies, this case study adds an essential level of detail that is
 204

absent in those other studies. Finally, by focusing on just one union local this case

study allows for an in-depth discussion of the dynamic interplay between union

contract administration strategies and context that is absent in other previous research

in this area.

Areas of Future Research

The Culinary Union is one of the most prominent exceptions to the current

decline of the labor movement in the United States. Therefore, more research needs to

be done on other contextual factors that may influence industrial relations outcomes in

Las Vegas’s casino industry. First, a more detailed study of the early stages of the

Culinary Union’s revitalization process needs to be conducted. This case study

focuses on the organizational characteristics of the Culinary Union after it had already

made the organizational transformations that lead to its sustained revitalization and

does not provide an in-depth discussion of how and why those transformations began.

In order to get a full understanding of organizational reforms and contextual

influences behind the Culinary Union’s successful revitalization process a detailed

case study of the local covering the period beginning in the late 1980s through the

early 1990s needs to be conducted.

Further research could also be conducted on the influence of workforce

demographic variables on the Culinary Union’s revitalization process. This topic was

only briefly discussed in this case study, although the growing predominance of

Hispanic, Asian, and female workers is a significant change in the composition of the

casino industry workforce. Such a study would be especially valuable because similar

demographic changes are occurring throughout the American labor force and the labor

movement needs to learn how to reach out to diverse groups of workers if it is going to

survive. Furthermore, the unions that are driving the American labor movement’s
 205

revitalization effort, UNITE-HERE and SEIU, are concentrated in industries

dominated by these demographic groups.

Research could also be conducted on how the personalities and relationships of

Culinary Union leaders and gaming industry executives have influenced industrial

relations in the Las Vegas’s gaming industry. As mentioned in chapters four and five,

industrial relations strategies of the larger gaming companies operating in Las Vegas

have been driven by several key industry leaders such as Steve Wynn, William

Bennett, and Kirk Kerkorian. These business leaders largely set the tone for industrial

relations strategies pursued by the major gaming operators in Las Vegas during the

1990s and into the 21st century. Likewise, the innovative leaders of the Culinary

Union such as Jim Arnold, John Wilhelm, and D. Taylor have also had significant

influence on the industrial relations outcomes in Las Vegas gaming industry, through

the strategic choices made the Culinary Union. A future study could look at how these

individuals and their mutual relationships have influenced industrial relations

outcomes in Las Vegas’s gaming industry.

The Culinary Union’s contract administration strategy provides another

potentially rich area of research for scholars interested in the local. This case study

discussed the influence of the organizing model of contract administration on union

participation and mobilization capacity, however, quantitative statistical research in

this area is still lacking. Such a study should find a way to measure both formal and

informal varieties of participation, since much of the quantitative research on union

participation research to date does not take into account the full range of ways in

which a member can participate in his/her union.

Future research could also look at the influence of union orientation strategies

and policies on rank-and-file participation and union mobilization capacity. A variety

of studies have found a strong and resilient correlation between a rank-and-file

 206

member’s opinion of a union’s new members orientation policy and their commitment

to the union as well as their participation in union affairs (Clark et al. 1993, Clark et

al. 2000, Clark et. al. 2004). The Culinary Union has an extensive new member

orientation procedure, which some of the union’s internal organizers credit with

playing an important role in increasing rank-and-file participation in the union (Henry,

2005, Pappageorge, 2005). In addition the Culinary Academy could also act like an

informal pre-orientation for new members, and have the effect of increasing rank-and-

file commitment to and participation in the union (Pappageorge, 2005, Cole, 2003). A

case study examining the relationship between new members’ orientation and union

participation could also explore the relationship between new member orientation and

other areas of union activity such as contract administration or external organizing.

A comparative study of the contract administration strategies of the Culinary

Union and HERE’s local in Atlantic City could be another potentially interesting

avenue of research. HERE’s Atlantic City affiliate pursues a contract administration

strategy that is closer to the servicing model, and therefore it would be interesting to

compare these two contrasting strategies as they are applied in similar contexts.

Furthermore, HERE’s Atlantic City affiliate, unlike the Culinary Union, has not gone

through a significant revitalization process, so a broader comparative study of these

two locals could be a valuable contribution to the debate over the degree to which the

Culinary Union’s success is the result of contextual variables associated with Las

Vegas’s casino industry. Such a study could also provide additional insight into the

specific success of the Culinary Union, and would also be an important addition to

wider union revitalization literature. For example, it could help explain why only a

few union locals have managed to revitalize themselves. Finally, given the current

scarcity of contract administration research in the revitalization literature, further case

studies of attempts by unions to apply the organizing model of contract administration

 207

in diverse contexts would be an invaluable way to build on the findings of this case

study.

Implications for other Union Locals

The Culinary Union is often offered as an example of how labor unions can

thrive in today’s inhospitable industrial relations climate. However, examples of other

union locals similarly revitalizing themselves are few and far between. Therefore, it

has been suggested that the Culinary Union’s success is in large part due to its

contextual environment. Yet this case study describes how the Culinary Union’s

strategic decisions have not only contributed to its success, but also changed the

context in which it operates. Therefore, it is the dynamic interaction between external

contextual variables and the Culinary Union’s strategies that are responsible for the

local’s success.

This conclusion is supported by the fact that other private sector unions such as

SEIU Local 1877 which represents workers in California’s property services industry,

and SEIU 1199NY which represents healthcare employees in New York State, have

enjoyed levels of success similar to those of the Culinary Union, in widely varying

contexts. As with the Culinary Union, many of the tactics used by SEIU Local 1877

and SEIU 1199NY, such as using workers’ relationships with consumers as leverage

points to put pressure on employers, rely on rank-and-file mobilization. Therefore,

these local unions as well as others whose tactical repertoire depends on rank-and-file

mobilization, would benefit from using many of the strategies that Culinary Union

uses to increase its rank-and-file mobilization capacity. One such strategy is the

Culinary Union’s organizing model of contract administration, which this case study

shows is one of the primary factors behind the Culinary Union’s successful 2002

comprehensive contract campaign.

 208

Therefore, although external context clearly influences industrial relations

outcomes in Las Vegas’s gaming industry, union strategies have a significant role as

well. By demonstrating that Culinary Union strategies do influence industrial

relations outcomes in Las Vegas, this thesis supports the argument often made by

union revitalization researchers, that in today’s inhospitable industrial relations

climate, unions can still revitalize themselves if they utilize a set of strategies that is

well matched to the industrial relations contexts in which they operate. Furthermore,

even though context influences both the Culinary Union’s strategic choices and

effectiveness, there are lessons that can be taken from this case study and applied

elsewhere, especially where unions can rely on rank-and-file intensive tactics to place

pressure on employers.

Future Prospects of the Culinary Union

Since the 2002 negotiations the Culinary Union has improved its density in the

Las Vegas Strip market, signing neutrality agreements with every casino operator

along the Strip except for The Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns the Venetian. This

process has been facilitated by a wave of mergers that has consolidated the casino

industry in Las Vegas and the re-entry of Steve Wynn into Las Vegas’s casino
industry. However, the Culinary Union’s efforts to organize off the Strip have been

stymied. While it has maintained density in the stagnant downtown submarket, it has

failed to make any headway organizing neighborhood properties or any major

properties located just off the Strip, such as the Palms and Hard Rock Café.

Therefore, while it is likely the Culinary Union will continue to enjoy extremely high

density along the Strip, there are no clear signs as to whether the Culinary Union will

be able to expand it presence off the Strip in future.

Furthermore, there have been signs that the NLRB may begin to place

restrictions on the neutrality agreements the Culinary Union has typically used in its
 209

external organizing campaigns. It is unclear at this time what the specifics of the

NLRB’s new policy in this area will be, and therefore it is hard to make predictions as

to what the impact of a change in policy on the Culinary Union’s future organizing

prospects will be. However, considering the degree to which such agreements have

become routine for most of Las Vegas’s major gaming operators and the amount of

power the Culinary Union has in the local industry, it would be surprising if the

change in the NLRB’s policy would have much of an effect on the Culinary Union

external organizing ability along the strip, unless the NLRB adopted an extremely

draconian policy against neutrality agreements. However, the impact of the NLRB’s

change in policy off the Strip, where neutrality agreements and the Culinary are not as

established, is less clear.

The gaming industry has continued to proliferate throughout the United States

and the Culinary Union’s parent union, UNITE-HERE, has made some headway in

organizing these casinos. For example, UNITE-HERE has won a national neutrality

agreement covering a large number of properties that were being developed by Park

Place Entertainment, before it was acquired by Harrah’s. Furthermore, it has gotten

neutrality agreements written into state gaming laws in a few states such as New York,

covering most new casino development. It is unclear if UNITE-HERE’s organizing

efforts will catch up to the pace of the casino industry’s expansion and what the

overall effect of this expansion on Las Vegas gaming industry will be. However even

with the expansion of the gaming industry, Las Vegas’s major gaming operators are

still relatively concentrated Las Vegas; making it difficult for them to offset any losses

they incur in this market as a result of Culinary Union pressure tactics, with revenues

from other locations.

 APPENDIX A

Job Classifications & 2002 Wages (before tips) of Culinary Union Members at the

Mirage Resort and Hotel as called for by the 2002 – 2007 contract.

Classification Hourly Wage (in Dollars)

Sous Chef 13.884
Master Cook 13.709
Cook 13.353
Butcher 13.353
Sushi Cook 13.709
Teppan Cook 13.353
Baker 13.571
Pantry Worker 12.821
Helper 12.021
Steward 12.390
Stove Cleaner 10.940
Kitchen Worker 10.690
Utility Cleaner 11.840
Linen Chute Room 11.859
General Cleaner 10.721
Guest Room Attendant 10.453
Status Board Operator 11.965
Uniform Attendant 11.859
Server 8.709
Server (6 Hour Shift) 8.907
Server-Showroom 8.709
Server-Showroom (6 Hour Shift) 8.907
Server-Cocktail 8.509
Server-Cocktail (6 Hour Shift) 8.907
Server-Banquet-Hourly 9.440
Server-Banquet-Hourly/Temp 9.440
Host Person 12.115
Host Person (6 Hour Shift) 12.315
Usher 10.825
Usher (6 Hour shift) 11.030
Head Usher 15.200
Head Usher (6 Hour Shift) 15.400
Fountain/Counter 9.684
Fountain/Counter (6 Hour Shift) 9.884
Cashiers-F & B 12.540
Cashiers-F &B (6 Hour Shift) 12.790

210
 211

Classification Hourly Wage (in Dollars)

Slot Booth Cashier 12.653
Busperson-Regular 8.921
Busperson-Regular (6 Hour Shift) 9.032
Busperson-Showroom 8.921
Busperson-Showroom (6 Hour Shift) 9.032
Runner 9.165
Bartender, Tipped 13.078
Bartender, Tipped (6 Hour Shift) 13.280
Bartender, Non-Tipped 13.515
Bartender, Non-Tipped (6 Hour Shift) 13.720
Apprentice Bartender 10.646
Apprentice Bartender (6 Hour Shift) 10.850
Beverage Porter 11.240
Beverage Porter (6 Hour Shift) 11.435
Mini-Bar Attendant 10.700
Room Svc Dispatcher 12.590
Front Svc Baggage Handler 10.715
Front Svc Dispatcher Supervisor 10.960
Front Svc Dispatcher 10.700
Front Svc Door Person Supervisor 10.490
Front SVC Door Person 9.240
Front SVC Door Person (6 Hour Shift) 9.440
Front SVC Bell Person 9.001
Front SVC Bell Person (6 Hour Shift) 9.201
Linen Attendant 11.859
Banquet Set-Up Porter 11.240
Lead Banquet Set-Up Porter 12.240
 APPENDIX B

Location, Ownership, and Contract Expiration Date of Las Vegas Casinos whose

employees are represented by the Culinary Union,

Name of Ownership at time of 2002 Contract

Property Negotiations Location Expires in
2002?
Bally's Park Place Entertainment
Strip Yes
Barbary Owned by Coast Resorts
Strip Yes
Coast
Bellagio MGM-Mirage
Strip Yes
Binion's Binion Family
Downtown Yes
Horseshoe
Ceasers Park Place Entertainment
Strip Yes
Palace
Castaways VSS Enterprises, LLC
Neighborhood Yes
Circus Mandalay Resort Group
Circus Strip Yes

El Cortez Jackie Gaughan

Downtown Yes
El Dorado Boyd Gaming Corp.
Neighborhood No
Excalibur Mandalay Resort Group
Strip Yes
Flamingo Park Place Entertainment
Strip Yes
Las Vegas
Fitzgeralds Fitzgeralds Gaming Corp
Downtown Yes
Four Elsinore Corp.
Queens Downtown Yes

Fremont Boyd Gaming Corp.

Downtown Yes
Golden Partners, Mark Mark
Downtown Yes
Gate Brandenburg and Craig Ghelfi

212
 213

Name of Ownership at time of 2002 Contract

Property Negotiations Location Expires in
2002?
Golden MGM-Mirage
Downtown Yes
Nugget
Harrah's Harrah's Entertainment Inc.
Strip Yes
Las Vegas
Jerry's George Stamis and Jerry Lodge
Neighborhood Yes
Nugget
Las Vegas Mel Exber and Jackie Gaugha
Downtown Yes
Club
Las Vegas Park Place Entertainment
Strip Yes
Hilton
Luxor Mandalay Resort Group
Strip Yes
Mandalay Mandalay Resort Group
Strip Yes
Bay
MGM MGM-Mirage
Strip No
Grand
The Mirage MGM-Mirage
Strip Yes
Monte MGM-Mirage/Mandalay Resort
Strip Yes
Carlo Group
New Phil Ruffin
Strip No
Frontier
New York- MGM-Mirage
Strip Yes
New York
Paris Park Place Entertainment
Strip Yes
Plaza Jackie Gaughan
Downtown Yes
Rio Harrah's Entertainment Inc.
Strip No
Riviera Riviera Holding Corp.
Strip Yes
Sahara Sahara Gaming Corp.-Controllen
Strip Yes
by Bill Bennet
Slots a Fun Mandalay Resort Group
Strip Yes
Stardust Boyd Gaming Corp.
Strip Yes
Stratosphere Operated by Carl Icahn
Strip Yes
Treasure MGM-Mirage
Strip Yes
Island
 214

Name of Ownership at time of 2002 Contract

Property Negotiations Location Expires in
2002?
Tropicana Aztar Corp.
Strip Yes
Western Jackie Gaughan
Downtown Yes
Hotel
References
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Alexander, Courtney. (2005, April). Interview by author. Washington, DC.

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________. (2002b, July 1). "All but two properties settle with unions; western to
close." [Electronic version] Las Vegas Sun.

________. (2002c, July 2). "Downtown Vegas casino workers picket Fremont Street.”
[Electronic version] Las Vegas Sun.

________. (2002d, July 1). "All but two Vegas casino settle with unions; Western to
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________. (2002e, July 1). "Downtown Vegas casino workers walk after contract talks
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