‘Workers have a voice’: How Las Vegas unions think of Labor Day
As grills fire up and tourists visit Las Vegas for the last long weekend of the summer, local labor unions say their recent accomplishments are a reminder of the origins of the holiday.
For Javon Johnson, a carpenter and business representative for the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, Monday is a day for her to reflect on how her job helped her recently purchase a new home.
“I’ll put my stuff away and hit the grill in my new backyard — enjoy the fruits of my labor,” Johnson said.
Labor Day’s origins
Labor Day was first celebrated in the late 19th century in New York. Who developed the idea for a workman’s holiday is disputed, with some crediting Peter J. McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor and others suggesting Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Labor Union, as who first proposed the holiday.
Nonetheless, it caught on and Congress made it a federal holiday in 1894 — in part to quell tensions after the Pullman Strike, a widespread and violent railroad strike in Illinois that summer. It followed years of increasingly common labor strikes, and politicians were looking for a way to show that they supported workers during the Industrial Revolution.
Other union officials use it as a time to reflect on what can be done next. Paula Larson-Schusster, president of the United Auto Workers Local 3555 representing about 3,000 table games dealers and slot attendants at Strip properties, said she can find a through line of the accomplishments of past labor unions to what they are working on today.
Past unions focused on worker safety, workers’ relationship with technology and workplace fairness, through negotiating that eventually made 40-hour workweeks, overtime pay, and some safety expectations standard.
“We’re going to go on with growing our union and continuing to protect our workers, especially with the new video streaming that’s coming out,” Larson-Schusster said. “That’s a technology that affects our workers’ lives and we need to make sure they’re protected.”
Recent labor action
Other labor unions in Las Vegas have been public about their efforts to get what they view as fair contracts. On Thursday, 23 members of Culinary Local 226 were arrested for a civil disobedience display outside of Virgin Las Vegas, an off-Strip property that has been negotiating with the union for a five-year contract for about a year. It held a two-day strike against the property in May.
It comes during a busy year for the largest union in the state, with roughly 60,000 members. Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said Las Vegas’ reputation as a union town means the organization has to keep up its standards and fight long term. He pointed to the recent collective bargaining agreement achieved at The Venetian and Palazzo — the property’s first ever union contract.
“In practice, being ‘a union town’ means that workers have a voice, are treated with dignity, and can count on their union to stand by them,” Pappageorge said in a statement. “We are proud of our 9 decades-long history of doing just that. Whether it’s through fighting for fair wages, pushing for the elimination of taxes on tips — while raising the minimum wage and ending the sub-minimum wage, or supporting our members through every evolution that Las Vegas undertakes, like the closures of the Mirage and Tropicana, the Culinary Union is here to stay — continuing to fight, win, and make Nevada a better place for all working families.”
Public opinion up on labor unions
A Gallup poll released Thursday shows 70 percent of Americans approve of labor unions — one point shy of its highest approval rating. Popularity has risen in recent years, perhaps because high-profile labor actions like the double actors’ and writers’ strike in Hollywood and the United Auto Workers strike — both in 2023 — and organizing efforts at large retailers like the coffee chain Starbucks.
Johnson said union workers have also worked in less public ways to achieve policies that support their goals. She said the Carpenters Union was particularly involved in lobbying for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed into law in 2021, getting workers to speak to their politicians about how all workers could benefit from federal funding for large-scale projects, such as the Brightline West high-speed rail project linking Las Vegas to Southern California.
“We workers have been promised infrastructure bills for years and years, but there’s always been a pushback,” she said.
A surge in labor attention and action has not translated to higher unionization rates. Ten percent of workers in 2023 were members of a labor union, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Larson-Schusster said she suspects the friction is because people are not fully aware of their rights and the purpose of a union when it comes time for organizing in their workplace. They may shrug it off because of union dues or because their employer offers competitive wages compared to a union contract.
But, she points out the collective bargaining agreement keeps the employer from changing their terms.
“A contract is a binding agreement,” she said. “That’s one of my biggest arguments. A lot of the managers and upper echelon in these corporations all have contracts, and they negotiate those contracts very closely.”
Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.