A few highlights from co-host Dayvid Figler’s podcast interview with Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, recorded shortly after the union agreed to contracts with Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, and Wynn Las Vegas.
The big three are now out of the way, at least for five years. So what comes next for culinary contracts?
Look, that sets the tone, but there's no bargaining association on the Strip. If somebody like Caesars Entertainment, which said, We're going to settle this deal, and we'll be first — if we say to them, Okay, but other Strip employers aren't going to pay the same freight, we'll never get Caesars to make that deal again. So, we've got 24 more contracts that we've got to get settlements. These folks are not just going to roll over … I think we come back after January, and we're going to have strike deadlines, and I think we're going to have some strikes.
Some commentators had a lot of info about the sequence of events before they happened, which begs the question, was there always going to be an inevitable conclusion?
This is still a company town. And when you're headed for a real fight … there's going to be what I call company mouthpieces out there doing the work of the boss. At the end of the day, you don't know you're going to get it until you get it — and you have to have a credible threat of a strike. This kind of snarky attitude about stuff being staged is a form of snobbery, in my opinion, that is just demeaning to workers.
There was one tactic that, from my vantage point, was a little too far, which was the arrest (of pre-selected union protesters) and coordinating that with Metro.
The idea that somehow these folks are not real protesters, or they're not really fighting, that's nonsense. These are moms and dads who go out and put an arrest on their record. That's real. We tell the cops, we're going to do this. If you want to work with us, great. If you don't, that's fine. And the cops say, We're not going to put 100 people in jail and jam up the courts. We're going to arrest them, and we're going to release them. The idea that folks trivialize that because, oh, it's not pure protesting — I think that's demeaning. Those workers made that decision to do that. And it's a pretty powerful thing.
(Edited for length and clarity.)
