Thread: 10,000 Las Vegas Union Casino Workers in Revolt, May Strike Over Obamacare

10,000 Las Vegas Union Casino Workers in Revolt, May Strike Over Obamacare

Posted on 7 March, 2014 by Rick Wells



The Las Vegas Culinary Union is unhappy with obamacare. They were a big factor in the Nevada vote and were instrumental in helping to get Obama elected both times. They were in favor of obamacare as was their leadership as long as the negative impacts were being felt by someone else. Now that it is impacting them directly, they’re singing a different tune. It’s a kind of bluesy sounding version of “si se puede.”

Maybe mindlessly following the dictates of union bosses isn’t such a good idea. Critical thinking in the election process is not a requirement, but it can be useful. They made their bed, it’s bedtime, but they aren’t about to take this lying down.

The real possibility exists of the union voting to go on strike if contract negotiations to keep their existing benefits are not resolved satisfactorily by March 20^th. That is the trigger date, and with 10,000 members, it could be a major blow for the city of Las Vegas.

Speaking for the disgruntled Obama-supporting workers of Local 226, Donald Taylor, Unite Here President said, “The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare. Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won’t be true.”

Donald should have phrased his comments along the lines of even though Obama and the Democrats told them that. No Republicans said anything of the kind. Those lies came from the lips of Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer and company.

Now that there are no more elections in his future, B. Hussein Obama seems much less concerned with pleasing his union constituency. They seem to have lost their usefulness. To illustrate that point, the Obama regime decided their policy would be to deny unions requesting exemptions earlier this week. Over the summer, the Obama administration also rejected union requests for federal subsidies.

It’s clear the luster has faded from their relationship. While Obama no longer needs the unions, it will be very interesting to see how they react to being discarded like a used Kleenex by the guy they were in such admiration of. It’s so sad when infatuation blocks clear judgment in a one-sided relationship.

But the union workers will move on. They will survive. Perhaps they will regain their strength and learn from their mistakes sufficiently to retaliate against Democrats up for reelection. The dissatisfaction of unions across the country could make for some very interesting midterm elections.

It’s too bad that Harry Reid isn’t up for reelection this year.

Rick Wells is a conservative Constitutionalist author who contributes to conservative media outlets. “Like” him on Facebook and “Follow” him on Twitter.

http://gopthedailydose.com/2014/03/0...ver-obamacare/

Obamacare Ends Another Bad, Bad, Bad Week

By Jim Geraghty
March 7, 2014 7:30 AM
Comments 5

From the last Morning Jolt of the week:

Obamacare Has Another Bad Week — Really, Even Compared to Previous Bad Weeks.
Meanwhile, out in Nevada, the worst nightmare of Harry Reid and Barack Obama comes to fruition:
Contract negotiations are stalled for thousands of workers at casinos on the Strip and in downtown Las Vegas to the point where they may go on strike — and the sticking point is Obamacare.
On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks.
Rising health care costs due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act could put those benefits in jeopardy, the union says.
“The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare,” Donald “D” Taylor, president of Unite Here, the parent union of CU Local 226, told BuzzFeed in a statement. “Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won’t be true.”
When the unions are starting to sound like us, then you know this law is in serious trouble.
But hey, at least the law is getting insurance to the uninsured, right? Eh, yeah, about that . . .
The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway so far in signing up Americans who lack health insurance, the Affordable Care Act’s central goal.
A pair of surveys released on Thursday suggest that just one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private health plans through the new marketplace have signed up for one — and that about half of uninsured adults has looked for information on the online exchanges or plans to look . . .
One of the surveys, by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., shows that, of people who had signed up for coverage through the marketplaces by last month, just one-fourth described themselves as having been without insurance for most of the past year.
The survey also attempted to gauge what has been another fuzzy matter: how many of the people actually have the insurance for which they signed up. Under federal rules, coverage begins only if someone has started to pay their monthly insurance premiums.
And, the survey show, that just over half of uninsured people said they had started to pay, compared with nearly nine in 10 of those signing up on the exchanges who said they were simply switching from one health plan to another.
But hey, at least the law . . . eh, forget it, let’s just move on to the next poll result:
Although several parts of the Affordable Care Act have yet to be implemented, 23% of Americans say the healthcare law has hurt them or their families, while 10% say it has helped them so far. Still, the majority of Americans (63%) feel the law has had no impact on them or their families.
This update is from Gallup polling conducted between Feb. 28 and March 2, just prior to the Obama administration’s announcement this week that insurance companies will be able to delay until next year the requirement that they cancel or replace policies that don’t conform to the provisions of the law often referred to as “Obamacare.”
The 23% who feel the law has hurt them is the highest percentage for the question since Gallup began asking Americans about it in 2012, and is up from 19% in previous polling.
By 40% to 21%, Americans say the law is more likely to make their families’ healthcare situations worse rather than better, with the rest saying it will make little difference.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campai...k-jim-geraghty

EVERYBODY IS SCREWED

Democrats
Independents
Republicans

Lotty, Dotty and Every Damn Body is SCREWED and SCREWED HARD

Once again, the media doesn't differentiate between immigrant and illegal alien. The Union gets them to the polls and VOTES them. The reason we have Harry Reid. JMO
Unions flourish in Nevada with immigrants’ help

by Associated Press Follow @NBCLatino8:04 am on 12/24/2012

LAS VEGAS — The future of the American labor movement may lie just off the Las Vegas Strip, inside a squat building huddled in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino.

That’s the home of the Culinary Workers Local 226, a fast-growing union of hotel and casino employees that has thrived despite being in a right-to-work state and a region devastated by the real estate crash.

More than 90 percent of Culinary’s 60,000 predominantly immigrant workers opt to be dues-paying members, even though Nevada law says they cannot be forced to pay unions for their services.

As a result, housekeepers in most Strip hotels start at $16 an hour with free health care and a pension. Culinary’s track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it hemorrhages workers and reels from the approval of a right-to-work law this month in union-strong Michigan.

“National unions need to look at what some of the folks out here have done,” said Billy Vassiliadis, former chair of the Nevada Democratic Party. In a right-to-work state that for years was relatively conservative, “they had to be smart. They had to be nimble.”

As a result, he said, “labor here is a big pillar in the political debate.”
But that’s less true on a national scale. American labor has been on a downward trajectory for decades: Unions represented 30 percent of the workforce when the federal government first began tracking membership in the early 1980s. Now they represent less than 12 percent.

Michigan’s adoption of a right-to-work law follows a string of recent setbacks in the industrial Midwest. Indiana passed a right-to-work law early this year, and Wisconsin effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers last year.

Nemias Ayala, left, and Mailen Gonzales practice stripping and making hotel room beds in a guest room attendant class at the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

The American union member once was typified by the white Michigan factory worker who was hoisted into the middle class by the United Auto Workers’ package of good pay and benefits.

Now Culinary’s service worker membership — largely Hispanic housekeepers, line cooks, and hostesses at casinos — may be the new model.

“Manufacturing jobs used to be horrible, until they got organized,” said D. Taylor, who just stepped down as Culinary’s secretary-treasurer to run its national organization, Unite-HERE. “Service jobs used to be the same — horrible jobs until they got organized.

Nevada’s not some magic place. Those jobs just got organized.”
Culinary has almost quadrupled its membership since the 1980s, but Nevada unions still struggle against national headwinds. The percentage of workers in the state who belong to unions is down to 14.6 percent from its 1996 peak of 20 percent — though much of that decline happened in the past four years after the real estate crash wiped out thousands of union construction jobs.

Danny Thompson, head of the state AFL-CIO, says right-to-work has hobbled Nevada labor. But he’s mulling going on the offensive and asking voters to overturn the law, which passed narrowly in the 1950s.

“There’s no question that this is a strong union state,” he said.
The Nevada model, however, is difficult to duplicate.

Michael Chamberlain, a Republican political consultant in Las Vegas, notes Culinary has thrived in a heavily regulated industry. If casinos, which must be licensed by the state, pay their workers high wages, it’s difficult for competitors to offer less. And cleaning, cooking, and card-dealing jobs cannot be shipped overseas.

“They have the ability to limit competition, and that allows the unions to develop their power,” Chamberlain said.
Even Nevada’s formidable construction trade unions have had most of their success in casinos along the Strip, and less in private suburban projects where wages are competitive, Mr. Chamberlain said.
Indeed, many of labor’s remaining success stories come in areas where competition is limited, said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California Santa Barbara.

He pointed to unions representing port workers in Los Angeles and Long Beach, as well as unions representing professional athletes in baseball, hockey, football, and basketball. Like with Las Vegas casinos, those jobs cannot be moved to lower-wage locations.

Still, there are other pockets that show Nevada-like efforts can be replicated. As Culinary regrouped from a series of 1990s setbacks and started to grow again, unions in Los Angeles organized immigrant garment workers and janitors. Now labor is the predominant political power in once staunchly anti-union Southern California and one reason that state is a Democratic stronghold.
Mr. Vassiliadis said unions in the Southwest win loyalty by helping immigrants enter the middle class and turn low-wage jobs into stable sources of health insurance. In the Rust Belt, he said, labor is trying to maintain generations-old victories.

“They’ve done a heck of a job at being the ones who brought Latinos into the mainstream, provided them health insurance and pensions,” Mr. Vassiliadis said. “In the Rust Belt, you’re looking at third- and fourth-generation auto workers, folks who have always had health insurance. They never had to fight for these things and over time [unions'] relevance has faded.”

The union isn’t afraid to play hardball. It famously went on strike for six years and ended up closing a casino that resisted organizing. It’s now trying to organize the Station casinos off the Strip in a campaign that could last as long. But Culinary also has generally warm relations with the gambling industry and helps defend its interests.

In partnership with the casinos, Culinary created an academy that trains workers to become housekeepers or sommeliers and offers English classes. The new head of Culinary, replacing Taylor, is a Nicaraguan immigrant and former housekeeper.

Mr. Taylor cited Culinary’s track record and member outreach as the reason so many workers pay dues.

“They know,” he said, “that, together, they have more strength.”

http://nbclatino.com/2012/12/24/unio...migrants-help/

Moved to General discussion. Illegal immigrant labor issues.

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

EVERYBODY IS SCREWED

Democrats
Independents
Republicans

Lotty, Dotty and Every Damn Body is SCREWED and SCREWED HARD

--------------------------------------

Almost, but not everybody. Harry Reid, John Boehner, all the congress and the senate, and Obama are EXEMPT.

Ain't it sweet though? The socialist/communist mules doing the work for Obama's reelection have now felt his viper sting.

The first of many ..

I think that anyone that spends money in the casinos that employ union sponsored illegal aliens and use them to elect the likes of Harry Reid is, in my opinion, a traitor to this country.

In my opinion, the election of the corrupt Harry Reid is a perfect example of what happens when illegal aliens vote in our elections. The first bill he proposed after re -election was an bill that would allow "established" gaming houses to have on-line gambling. Pay back? JMO

Unions team up for large Vegas immigration rally

Unions team up for 1,000-person Las Vegas immigration reform rally
By Hannah Dreier,
Associated Press
February 12, 2013 10:22 AM

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Immigration activists in Las Vegas are hoping to capitalize on the momentum President Barack Obama brought when he spoke on the topic here last month.

Two unions teamed up Monday to hold a rally at the Cashman Center convention hall in North Las Vegas in support of a major immigration overhaul.

The Culinary Union drew about 1,000 hotel workers to the convention center in the morning to discuss contract negotiations at several mega-casinos on the Strip, Spokeswoman Yvanna Cancela said.

Around noon, the Nevada State AFL-CIO brought those workers together with students, immigration advocates and labor leaders for an hour-long demonstration.

One of the nation's largest unions, the AFL-CIO has scheduled rallies in 14 cities to encourage Congress to approve comprehensive reform. The push began in Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday and will continue through March in cities including San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami and New York.

The federation has pledged to educate voters and pressure elected officials using the same infrastructure that helped re-elect Obama.

In Nevada, the second stop on the tour, the Latino voting population has been growing and coalescing into a formidable battleground state voting bloc.

In January, Obama spoke at a Las Vegas high school during a campaign-style event to launch his immigration reform effort.

Nevada AFL-CIO spokeswoman Emmelle Israel said the speech showed that immigrants are amassing power in the Silver State.

"It's a really important state for comprehensive immigration reform, as we saw with President Obama's visit last month," she said. "We've seen here in Nevada the political power that immigrant communities are building."

Latinos now make up more than a quarter of the Nevada population. Illegal immigrants account for 7 percent of residents, more than any other state, and 10 percent of the workforce, according to a 2011 Pew Hispanic Center study.

The White House confirmed on Monday that a 20-year old student from Las Vegas who is an illegal immigrant will be among the guests invited to Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

Unions across the country are supporting a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, saying the change will lead to better wages and working conditions.

Among the strongest of Nevada's labor organizations is Culinary Workers Local 226, a fast-growing union made up of predominantly immigrant hotel and casino employees.

The union is preparing to negotiate new contracts in June with MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Corporation, which, combined, manage more than a dozen major casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood , the MGM Grand and the Bellagio.
The union's 2007 contract, which also includes downtown casinos, stipulates health and retirement benefits, wages, and job security mandates.

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-team-la...JmMQR2dGlkAw--
___

Major Labor Union Says Obamacare Will Slash Their Wages By Up to Five Dollars an Hour

Video at the Page Link:

Fox News’ Stuart Varney and Town Hall’s Katie Pavlich discuss labor union Unite Here’s claim that Obamacare will lower their members’ wages by up to $5 an hour.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/1203...-dollars-hour/

“Socialized medicine is the keystone in the establishment of a socialist state.” Dr. Carson

~Zeus

Via: Capitalism Institute