Las Vegas, Nevada Strip Hotel Labor Relations Collection (MS-00659)

Since the 1930s workers, labor unions, and hotel casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada have operated to serve the hospitality industry, tourists, and employees. In 1931, the Nevada State Legislature voted to legalize gambling, and in 1935 United States Congress passed the Wagner Act establishing the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) e as arbiter between employers and labor unions and allowing workers to organize into unions. Initially hoteliers established the first casinos in downtown Las Vegas, but by the late 1940s developers turned to the Las Vegas Strip and constructed hotels, in part, with loans from the Teamsters Pension Fund. Up until the late 1960s most labor disputes between the Culinary Union, who represented hotel and restaurant employees, and the Bartenders Union were resolved with closed negotiations. In 1965 multiple Strip hotels joined the Nevada Resort Association (NRA), an advocacy group that represented the gaming industry in labor disputes. Most hotel owners worked in close partnership with unions to avoid disruption to the tourist economy.

Around 1970 the relationship between labor unions and hotels became strained after the casino industry shifted from privately owned operations to corporate-run hotels. Nevada legislature passed two corporate gaming acts in 1967 and 1969, allowing corporations to own casinos. The Culinary Union and Bartenders Union participated in strikes against various Las Vegas Strip and downtown Las Vegas hotels from the 1970s through the 1990s. Notably, in 1976, the Culinary Union joined the Musicians and Stagehands unions in a 17 day strike against 15 hotels that costs the city millions of dollars. In 1984, multiple NRA represented Strip hotel contracts with the Culinary and Bartenders unions expired simultaneously and many hotels refused to sign new contracts. The strike lasted two months, police arrested over 900 picketers, and six hotels did not sign union contracts. This period of Las Vegas labor history is characterized by labor disputes that were largely in reaction to the transitioning of the gaming industry into corporatized gaming.

While workers and labor unions adjusted to the newly corporate gaming industry in Las Vegas, yet another change happened to the casino industry with the advent of mega resorts. For example, in 1989 Steve Wynn opened the Mirage, which was at that time the largest hotel in the world, and needed thousands of workers to staff the mega resort. Wynn entered into a contract with the Culinary and Bartenders unions before the casino opened, ensuring uninterrupted business for Wynn and thousands of new union members for the unions. Casinos that opened after 1989 often followed the example of the Mirage and signed collective bargaining agreements with labor unions. Overall, this trend of conciliation between employees and employers as well as unions and casinos continues to this day.

Sources referenced: Kraft, James P. Vegas at Odds: Labor Conflict in a Leisure Economy, 1960-1985. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.