Downtown Las Vegas casino operators are demanding
workers pay increased health and pension costs from
existing wages. On Saturday, October 13, 2012, Culinary Union Local 226 (UNITE HERE!)members picketed several downtown Las Vegas casinos, including Binions, The Golden Nugget, El Cortez, The D, and more.

1. Las Vegas Sun: Protest Downtown Draws Thousands Of
Union Workers
2. Las Vegas Review-Journal: Pickets Pick Up Pace On
Fremont Street


Protest Downtown Draws Thousands of Union Workers

By Brian Nordli

Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 10:32 p.m.
Las Vegas Sun

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/oct/13/protest-downtown-draws-thousands-union-workers/

Beverly Hoffrichter's voice is hoarse.

For eight hours Hoffrichter, a cocktail waitress at the
D, was picketing outside the property with her fellow
Culinary Union workers as part of a massive protest
outside all nine downtown casinos Saturday. Hundreds
came and went in shifts during the protest, but not
Hoffrichter. She stayed.

Her scratchy voice was the result of hours chanting and
shouting — a badge of honor in the larger fight for
union workers to make their voices heard. The 3,500
Culinary Union members with jobs downtown were
picketing to maintain health and retirement benefits in
their contracts.

"We're hoping to get our 15 cents,' Hoffrichter said
referring to the increase sought for the workers'
health and pension funds.

The negotiations have been going on since the contracts
expired in June. Culinary Union Local 226 president
Geoconda Arguello-Kline said the union members all
voted to hold the protest on Saturday, even though it
happened to fall on "Rediscover Downtown" day, an event
designed to highlight the attractions in downtown
Las Vegas.

"Today is a busy day, and we want downtown to grow,"
Arguello-Kline said. "But it's the workers who make it
grow."

To continue reading this article, follow this link:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/oct/13/protest-downtown-draws-thousands-union-workers/



Pickets Pick Up Pace On Fremont Street

By Tom Ragan

Oct. 13, 2012 8:43 p.m.
Las Vegas Review-Journal

http://www.lvrj.com/news/culinary-picketers-join-the-fremont-street-party-174062301.html?login=y

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Hundreds of pickets with the local Culinary and
Bartender unions broke free of their mono­tonous
circular rhythm and danced to the beat of live music on
Fremont Street on Saturday.

It was a case study perhaps in how the Fremont Street
Experience is inescapable and irresistible, even in
trying times when health and retirement benefits are at
risk.

The promoters of Rediscover Downtown Day, a movement
designed to attract more visitors to downtown, feared
the workers, with their cardboard signs and loud
chants, would only serve to set their efforts back...

And yet there they were, hundreds of pickets, breaking
down and crossing the universally dangerous line that
is known as karaoke, singing along to "Highway to
Hell," "Sweet Home Alabama" and "You're Sexy and You
Know it."

In nearby casino doorways, security guards looked on.
They stood vigil. This was their moment to protect. A
showdown was forecast...

Indeed, it wasn't the workers who threatened to
undermine the Fremont experience. It was the ones who
have become synonymous with the Fremont experience: the
alpha males dressed in Spider-Man suits, the unwashed
tweakers air jamming to the rock 'n' roll music; the
overzealous security guards, on their Segways,
barreling down on the panhandlers...

Ironically enough, they were the ones to watch out for
- not the throngs of hardworking bartenders, the host
of housekeepers, the countless cocktail waitresses and
cooks, many of whom, by the way, just got off an eight-
hour shift and still felt compelled to join in the
revolving door of this circular mass of humanity.

To continue reading this article, follow this link:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/culinary-picketers-join-the-fremont-street-party-174062301.html?login=y

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