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. The academy is funded through a trust created by culinary and bartenders unions as well as management from 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada has become an increasingly Democratic state. And the Culinary Union's track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it continues to hemorrhage workers and reels from the signature of a right-to-work law in Michigan this week. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
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. The academy is funded through a trust created by culinary and bartenders unions as well as management from 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada has become an increasingly Democratic state. And the Culinary Union's track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it continues to hemorrhage workers and reels from the signature of a right-to-work law in Michigan this week. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Michael Kelly folds sheet corners while practicing making beds in a guest room attendant class at the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, in Las Vegas. The academy is funded through a trust created by the culinary and bartenders unions as well as management from 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada has become an increasingly Democratic state. And the Culinary Union's track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it continues to hemorrhage workers and reels from the signature of a right-to-work law in Michigan this week. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Students in a professional cook class make hollandaise sauce as instructor Larry Baumann, far left, looks on at the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, in Las Vegas. The academy is funded through a trust created by the culinary and bartenders unions as well as management from 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada has become an increasingly Democratic state. And the Culinary Union's track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it continues to hemorrhage workers and reels from the signature of a right-to-work law in Michigan this week. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Chief instructor Larry Baumann, left, answers questions for students in a professional cook class at the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, in Las Vegas. The academy is funded through a trust created by the culinary and bartenders unions as well as management from 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada has become an increasingly Democratic state. And the Culinary Union's track record gives a dispirited labor movement some hope even as it continues to hemorrhage workers and reels from the signature of a right-to-work law in Michigan this week. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
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 last week 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.
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, 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 Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. 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.
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," 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.
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."
___
Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/nickriccardi .
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-12-17-Labor's%20Bright%20Spot/id-4398bfa2287e43e6ac47c4726932cc26
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Vincent H. Clarke is a Marketing Analyst for USB Memory Direct, a wholesaler of promotional USB drives. While he mostly writes about marketing and branding, he also enjoys writing about personal improvement, productivity, and start-up culture.
ThePessimisticChemist says:
Times are getting rougher in this area. My company does a LOT of business overseas, so we are still doing very well, but the blue collar jobs are taking a beating.
I feel bad when we turn away someone fully qualified for a position, but they wouldn?t want the pay anyways. Most are ex-union and want 25-50% more pay for the same work as people who have never been in a union before.
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28th December 2012 at 5:11 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
What a timely cartoon.
Since the election, about 75% of my patients have been asking me if I will still be around once Obamacare kicks in over the next few years.
I say that I don?t know, I just soldier on every day, that I am more worried about the economic collapse of the country, that I?ll hang on as long as I can but I am not optimistic.
I either get tears of acknowledgement of how screwed we are or looks of blank astonishment.
At this point, I hand out my little American flag pins (which I tell them to wear upside down indicating a nation in distress) and a little card with all my favorite websites on it, also the names/phones of our CONgresscritters.
Trying to spread my gospel of Embrace The Doom, one person at a time.
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28th December 2012 at 5:29 pm
Muck About says:
Attention llpoh!!
Paying attention? Listen up and act accordingly. I closed my own ?small business? 3 years ago just to avoid excessive taxes. Fuck ?em. They?ll keep spending any income they get until they get no more. Then they?ll spend more that the Fed gives them (now happening) until that won?t work anymore (maybe 2013).
Starve the beast. Stop paying taxes. Collect Free Shit from as many sources as you can.
Break the bastards and let?s start over from a lower baseline..
MA
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28th December 2012 at 7:17 pm
Administrator says:
Muck
How are you feeling? We haven?t heard from you for a few days.
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28th December 2012 at 7:21 pm
The Watchdog says:
@HZK,
Aside from TBP, what other web sites are on your little card?
ZeroHedge, Mish, King World News, The Onion?
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28th December 2012 at 7:44 pm
Llpoh says:
Muck ? already putting in plans for option number two. My prediction is for an exodus of small- business owners from their businesses. Despair will over-take them. Get out while the getting is less bad. No way in hell I am going broke just in order to keep my employees employed another year or three. I do not run a business for their benefit, which will come as a shock to them. At least to those that have ever given it a single thought.
I have always been pleased that what I do has provided a social good. Not any longer ? I no longer get to share in the good, but only suffer the bad. Screw it.
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28th December 2012 at 10:00 pm
Administrator says:
llpoh
I?m guessing your employees don?t frequent TBP.
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28th December 2012 at 10:12 pm
Chronic Agitator says:
Timely cartoon Indeed! For the time being I do not have to be concerned with Obama care because I have less than 50 employees but year after year gross revenue continues to deteriorate. If sales go any lower I will have no choice but to become ?Arnold?s Rug? as the old yellow pages advertisements used to say. Going back to a one man show would have it?s benefits but I have staff who need jobs, although, I believe most of them think it will be easy to go elsewhere.
Even though it is very stress full, I keep holding on?hoping that I can do a magical turn around but month by month it is getting less likely. Although it is possible, I like to think I am not to blame for everything in my company going to shit?maybe that is why I keep coming back to TBP because I want to feel like I am not responsible for all of this clusterfuck economy we have. [Rant Off- Temporarily] Be Safe FFs.
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28th December 2012 at 10:22 pm
Chronic Agitator says:
Lloph? I like your fucking attitude?really!
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28th December 2012 at 10:24 pm
Llpoh says:
Admin ? I suspect not. Too bad for them.
CA ? it is very important to abandon ship while the ship is still floating. If you wait too long, you can go down with it. I appreciate the kind words.
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28th December 2012 at 10:29 pm
crazyivan says:
?CA ? it is very important to abandon ship while the ship is still floating.? -llpoh
A good Captain will always get off a ? ?Brace For Impact? message.
A better Captain will admit to boarding passengers, that he has a very strong stinging pain in his penis, but assures that the flight will not be affected.
The best Captain will give everyone a parachute and say ?good luck you fuckers, I love you all?
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28th December 2012 at 11:23 pm