LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Las Vegas is no stranger to union strikes.
The last time a citywide strike happened with dozens of properties was in 1984.
I sat down with former Senator Richard Byran, who was governor of Nevada at the time.
Las Vegas has a history of culinary union strikes, and the reasons for the strikes sound similar to what we are hearing today.
Archives show a culinary strike in 1991 at the Frontier hotel, which used to be in downtown Las Vegas. It's one of the longest strikes in U.S. history, lasting about six years.
Seven years before, the 1984 strike included culinary workers, bartenders, stagehands and musicians. It was the last time a citywide strike happened with more than 32 Strip properties involved.
Bryan was in office as governor during the '84 strike that lasted 53 days.
"The town was much smaller," said Bryan. He says he wanted to minimize the impact on the state's economy.
"I was involved from day one just monitoring it," he said. "To show my support I attended one of the big rallies to express my support for them."
Tuesday, culinary union members voted to authorize a strike. Now, leaders could call one any day if no deal is reached.
Bryan says he is watching it all unfold.
"The key difference is the impact of technology," he said. "And the impact of one of the issues involved is cleaning the rooms daily."
He says the strike has the potential to impact our economy greatly, and the state could lose a lot of tax revenue.
"This could be big," he said. "I just have to think that common sense is going to prevail."
Las Vegas Culinary Union Vice President, Leain Vashan, is a bell captain at Paris Las Vegas. He was in the industry during the '84 strike. He says he hopes it doesn't come to that.
"During that time, we were asking for some of the same things like healthcare," Vashan said. "That was '84. We had progress year after year, and after that, it has been contentious all along. This is the very first time where it's been the hotels making a lot of money and not willing to have the workers share in that profit."
Bryan says he will be keeping a close eye on what happens next. Bargaining sessions are set for next week.
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