James “Jim” Bonaventure worked from thirteen years of age, entering the hotel casino industry at sixteen. The weekend buffet at the Hacienda was not his cup of tea but he hit his stride at his second job, the Horseshoe, and stayed there for seven and half years. But it was the work at the Union Hall that he loved. He stayed there for over thirty years developing the grievance department into today’s state-of-the-art entity that negotiates between employees and employers. Bonaventure served on the front lines of major disputes including strikes. In the beginning, the Las Vegas Police Department sided with hotel casino owners but over the years as personnel changed, they became more egalitarian in the treatment of strikers. The 1984 strike was one of the most contentious and up to that time, the largest in the history of the union. More than 17,000 workers walked off their jobs to protest conditions at 32 Hotel Resorts. Arrests were plentiful. As soon as the leadership reached the picket line, they were immediately handcuffed. The bitterness did not end when the 9-month strike concluded. Bonaventure remembers Bally’s putting up $100,000 to fight grievances. Still, the union won 85% of the cases. Then several downtown casinos reared their collective heads. The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas Club, and the Plaza Hotel Casino were dubbed the Downtown Three. Strained relationships turned into a lawsuit where the Culinary Union was paid $40,000. Then in 1989 Fitzgerald’s Hotel Casino’s actions called for a picket line. Bonaventure and other leaders agreed on a Noise Night. Union member brought pot and pans and banged on them. The night ended with a lawsuit filed by police officers claiming hearing loss. From the bottom of his heart, Bonaventure is a Union Man. It has been his life’s work. He is most proud of and humbled by his work as a trustee of the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas. Anyone can train there for most positions in the hotel industry and be hired into the industry upon graduation. And it’s the place when U.S. citizenship classes are given to all those ready to apply. During this 2014 interview Jim Bonaventure was thinking about retirement or at least slowing down. I would not be surprised if he’s still at his Culinary Workers Union Local 226 desk handling more grievances than anyone else in his department.

Alan Feldman fell in love with Las Vegas because of the Siegfried & Roy show at the Frontier. After the opening illusion, Crystal Chamber, “I don’t remember breathing.” Feldman grew up in a home with a creative father who was a self-trained musicologist and expert on Paul Robeson. His mother worked as a bookkeeper so Alan was encouraged to be grounded and to soar. As a theater major at UCLA, he was encouraged to hone his Public Relations skills. That expertise brought him to Las Vegas and to Steve Wynn and to work toward a changing relationship with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226. His work here has been life changing; management and labor did not have to fight at the end of each contract. He speaks of the changed understanding in this way: “…we also wanted to make a better product, and in making a better product we needed the employees to step up. Because if you are going to put five million dollars into a restaurant in 1990 where prior to that the most anyone had ever spent was a million, if you were going to tell the world come to Las Vegas because the experience is better, then the experience needed to be better. Maybe this is the part of Steve that he does deserve credit for, although, again, I think it's more—no, he's not alone now and folks like Jim Murren have absolutely taken up this same kind of notion. The building doesn't deliver your bags. The building doesn't hand you the meal. The building doesn't take your order. So great, you've got a volcano and you've got fountains and you've got stunning architecture. Fantastic. But if you don't have a smile on your face when you're welcoming someone to the hotel, it sucks and the rest of it doesn't matter.”

As International Counsel to UNITE HERE, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, Richard McCracken is a true union man whose law firm represents labor. He is an independent thinker who prefers direct action rather than the strategies and negotiations of the National Labor Relations Board. This interview covers union activity in several locations throughout the country but concentrates on Nevada with stories about Las Vegas and Reno labor connections that are profound. Once which organizing in Reno after the murder of two organizers, Richard was given a spiked drink. An older, more seasoned organizer instructed him to eat a cigarette forcing him to cough up everything in his system. Very early in his career, Richard learned that direct action was better and the strategies and techniques of the National Labor Relations Board. The Culinary Workers Union’s fight with the Showboat was one of unusual direct action. The union interfered directly in a matter of with the casino’s shareholders. Union work takes courage. McCracken admires that courage in D. Taylor, Hattie Canty, Jim Arnold, and many other local union leaders. His life is also an example of that same courage, determination, and legal savvy.