“We’re ready to show our company by our feet, and that means walking ourselves right out of the building,” she said. Leslie Lilla, a cocktail server at the Bellagio for 25 years, said earlier this month that union members have been preparing for a possible strike and are ready and willing to walk off the job.

A walkout would be the latest in a series of high-profile job actions around the country, including walkouts in Hollywood and the auto production lines in Detroit. The union hasn’t gone on strike in more than three decades.

She declined to say how much the union is seeking in pay raises because “we do not negotiate in public,” although the union has said it is asking for “the largest wage increases ever negotiated” in its history. Kahn said all union members currently receive health insurance and earn about $26 hourly, including benefits.

Contracts for about 40,000 of them in Las Vegas expired recently, and negotiations have been underway for months over topics such as pay and working conditions.īethany Khan, the union’s spokesperson, said in an interview after the protest that the union will cover all legal fees for the workers who were arrested, including bail and any costs for legal representation in court. The culinary union is the largest labor union in Nevada with about 60,000 members. But Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary and treasurer, told reporters this month that thousands of workers who keep the Strip’s hotel-casinos humming could walk off the job in the coming weeks if the latest round of negotiations aren’t productive.

A Las Vegas strike deadline has not yet been set as the union and casino companies return to the bargaining table this week.

Station casinos strike