Dive Brief:
- Wynn Resorts reached a tentative agreement with the Culinary Union early Friday morning, avoiding a strike at the resort operator’s two Las Vegas properties, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore.
- A new five-year contract offers over 5,000 Wynn employees the largest increases ever negotiated in the Culinary Union’s history.
- Wynn was the last of the three Vegas hospitality companies whose workers had authorized a strike to reach an agreement with the union. With tentative deals now in place at Wynn, MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, Vegas resorts have averted a strike.
Dive Insight:
The threat of what could have been the largest hospitality worker strike in Vegas’ history is over.
Wynn Resorts reached its agreement with Culinary Union Local 226 at 2 a.m. Friday PST, just hours before the union’s strike deadline.
In addition to wage increases, the new contract will include reduced workloads for room attendants, mandated daily room cleaning and increased safety protections for workers.
The contract also includes language acknowledging unionized workers’ rights to support non-union workers’ attempt to organize. And the contract’s expanded language around technology gives workers “the ability to have a say in how technology impacts our work,” according to Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union.
Further details of the contract were not disclosed. In a statement, Pappageorge called it “the best contract and economic package we have ever won for in our 88-year history.”
“We strongly believe that only the most talented and empowered employees, working in an environment in which they feel valued and well compensated, can deliver our signature Wynn and Encore guest experiences,” said Michael Weaver, a spokesperson for Wynn Las Vegas, in a statement.
Wynn’s agreement with the union comes one day after MGM’s, which came one day after Caesars’. All three companies have agreed to offer union workers their largest wage increases ever.
