Culinary Workers End Strike, Secure a New Contract with Virgin Hotels

Emil McLeod

The Culinary Workers Union (CWU) has reached an agreement with the monopoly hotel Virgin Hotels January 22, ending a 69-day strike of hospitality workers—the first strike led by the union, an affiliate of UNITE HERE, since 2002. The new contract is a five-year deal that covers nearly 700 workers at Virgin Hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, which were previously excluded from the CWU’s contractual agreements with other monopoly hotels on the Strip in 2023. The new contract was approved unanimously by the rank-and-file workers of the CWU and includes a 32% wage increase, which was the central demand of the striking workers, matching the previous wage increase won by the workers at other monopoly hotels along the Strip.

Workers maintained around-the-clock picket lines during the strike, despite Virgin Hotels’ dirty tactics of erecting temporary walls around their premises to obstruct onlookers’ view of the strikers and hiring a skeleton crew of scabs to combat the strike. The resilience and determination of the workers to stick to their strike led to the cancellation of a comedy show at the hotel, the loss of business from sympathetic sectors of the public that avoided patronizing the hotel during the strike, and the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) refusing to do business with the casino while the workers were on strike, all seriously financially impacting the monopoly hotel.

The CWU strike continues a trend of hospitality workers resisting recent efforts by the hotels to push the cost of the economic crisis onto the workers’ backs—the hotels generally cite Covid-19 as their excuse to cut the workforce, increase labor tempo, and depress wages. In this light, the wage increases won by workers in the recent hotel strikes are really a partial reversal of wage decreases.

image: CWU strikers joined by AFCSME union government employees on the picket lines in mid-January 2025. The sign with the 30 cents crossed out is in reference to the 30 cent yearly “raise” offered by Virgin Hotels, really a wage cut offer. CWU social media

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