Vol. 3, No. 2, 2007 • Page 3

to attend negotiations for those hotels that do not yet have contracts.

There are many factors involved in negotiations and what has happened, as I’m sure you have heard many times is that negotiations do not take place at the
negotiating table, instead happens inside the workplace. One of the things taking place this year is that a number of the Democratic presidential candidates visited Las Vegas and many of you went to the Culinary Union hearing them tell us they would help us win our contract fights. We know that those who “walks the walk” and who “talks the talk” are two different issues and we are not, as of yet, endorsing any Democratic candidate. We do know that Barack Obama has walked our picket line numerous times at the Congress Hotel in the cold Chicago winters and hot Chicago summers. John Edwards has worked with our unions and been to rallies for the last several years at hotels in cities across the United States and Canada. So, we know they “walk the walk” and other candidates such as Hilary Clinton have “talked the talk”

and she gave her word that she will be here to walk with us on our picket lines, should there be a strike in Las Vegas.

Now, let’s talk about the unsigned properties. First on the strip, the Las Vegas Hilton in negotiations has not put a complete package on the table. They have made proposals totally unacceptable and have not yet agreed to our four-point security package. (Now outdated, of course.) The Tropicana is an extremely problematic property that was purchased by a company called Columbia Sussex. They are a company, which is very large, owning many hotels throughout the United States, and have a gaming division that owns approximately eleven hotels. They purchased the Tropicana in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, in addition to a small boat in Indiana. This company is extremely antiunion and owned by a single person named William Yung, from Kentucky. Our union has had long fights over the years with Yung. Also, Columbia Sussex

purchased the old Maxim Hotel on Flamingo Road, remodeled it and reopened as the Westin. The Westin Hotel, to my knowledge, is the only hotel in the history of Las Vegas including Stations Casinos, Coast Casinos, and the Venetian that was built entirely non-union. This demonstrates how extremely antiunion Columbia Sussex is. They have laid off numerous workers in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and their non-union boat in Indiana. The mayor of the town in Indiana is in an uproar fighting with Columbia Sussex and their mistreatment of workers, so we are anticipating a very long, hard fight with this company.

Turning to downtown, first is Boyd Gaming, who owns Fremont and Main Street Station. They have not yet put a complete proposal on the table, after having several meetings with them. The Golden Nugget, being previously owned by the MGM Mirage and Wynn, to this point has always had a strip-type contract. Their prices and venues are comparable to the strip, yet they are looking for major cuts in the strip-type wages that they were paying and are not offering anywhere near the strip’s economic package. They also want to put in non-union restaurants, even though they are owned by the Golden Nugget. This is totally unacceptable and they have not yet agreed to any points of the security package. There is a group of six hotels negotiating with the same attorney that represents the Golden Nugget. Those six hotels are: the Western, Union Plaza, Vegas Club, El Cortez, Four Queens, and Fitzgerald’s. All these hotels want to have non-union restaurants and the last wage package they offered was $1.85 over five years; this is totally unacceptable. Some of the hotels in that group have proposed language that would allow hiring bartenders off the street and giving them a year to pass the craft exam; this is not acceptable and neither is their proposed four and six-hour shifts. So, you can see, as of today that we are nowhere near an agreement with downtown.

Then there are the laundries that some of you wonder why we care about them, since you are bartenders and apprentices working in hotel/casinos. These laundry workers are members of Local 226, which is part of our Local Joint Executive Board. They do not have anywhere near the health insurance and pension plan that we have and their working conditions are terrible. They clean the uniforms that you wear, bring in the bar

towels at your bars, and clean the sheets, pillowcases, and towels in the guest rooms. By working together with the laundry workers and making sure they have a great contract, makes us all much stronger.

On September 12, a strike vote was taken at Cashman Field where many of you attended, to show support, in addition to those members who have a contract a showed up to vote in support of their brothers and sisters who do not have contracts. An overwhelming number of members who voted gave authority to the Negotiating Committee to call a strike, if necessary. All unsigned hotels have extensions on the current contracts and either the union or the company can give a seven-day notice to revoke that extension. We cannot do that while we have a contract extension; and this is an action that is very likely to take place if we cannot resolve the contracts.

That is basically the status of negotiations at this point, and as I said in the beginning by the time you read this, there will be many changes and hopefully many more contracts will be signed and ratified. This fight will continue until every single member has a contract that realizes the “Las Vegas Dream,” and I want to thank again all the members who participated and helped fight for these contracts, and continue to fight for the contracts not yet agreed. I especially want to thank and recognize the committee people who gave up, and continue to give up, time from their jobs to help all the membership secure great contracts.

Over the past two weeks, specific deadlines were set for those hotel-casinos whom had not come to any kind of agreement. As of Thursday, October 18, the Las Vegas Hilton, the Boyd Group (Main Street and Fremont), the Golden Nugget, and the Downtown 6 (El Cortez, Fitzgerald’s, Four Queens, Las Vegas Club, Western, and the Plaza) properties have agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement subsequent to ratification in preservation of “the Las Vegas Dream” for its bargaining unit employees. Still remaining we have Binion’s, Golden Gate, Jerry’s Nugget, Mission Linen, and Signature condominiums. We are hopeful of securing the “Las Vegas Dream” for these remaining workers in the near future. We are prepared to have a long and hard fight at the Tropicana Hotel.