Labor's ace in the hole: casino organizing in Las Vegas

Abstract

The fortunes of organized labor in the United States are on the decline. Union density has been steadily falling for decades, and even a concerted effort by innovative unions and new leadership at the AFL‐CIO since 1995 has failed to reverse the losses. Amidst this generally gloomy picture, casino workers in Las Vegas have provided a striking counter‐example. Since 1989, over 30,000 of them have joined the Culinary Union (HERE Local 226), more than doubling the union's membership and bringing union density on the famous Las Vegas Strip to 90%. What accounts for their success in an otherwise bleak landscape for labor? Three sets of factors emerge that explain the basis of the Culinary Union's growth: an unusual labor market, in which labor shortages have helped create high union density and high density in turn has generated new leverage; an industry whose growth strategy has been based exclusively on expansion through new casinos, making it vulnerable to disruption; and a dense web of political relationships and processes that the union has engaged to increase its power vis‐à‐vis the industry. Together these unique structural conditions have given the Culinary Union an unusual amount of leverage. They have used that leverage to sidestep the disadvantages that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process has created for workers trying to organize, and have instituted an alternative method for establishing union recognition. With the pitfalls of labor law significantly neutralized, the union has been able to organize on scale to a degree not possible in the rest of the labor movement.