MAX ZAHN
Fri, November 10, 2023
Wynn Resorts workers in Las Vegas avert strike, reach tentative deal hours before deadline
Hotel and restaurant workers in Las Vegas reached a tentative agreement with Wynn Resorts on Friday just hours before a deadline, averting a strike against casino owners that could have disrupted the tourist industry ahead of a Formula 1 race next week that's expected to attract thousands of visitors, the union said.
The tentative deal sets working conditions for 5,000 employees at two Wynn Resorts locations, and comes on the heels of similar agreements with Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International that covered roughly 35,500 workers.
The Culinary Workers Union said in a statement Friday that the five-year contract includes the largest wage increases ever negotiated in its 88-year history, as well as increased safety protections, workload reductions for some workers, and expanded use of technology.
The tentative agreement, which must be ratified by a majority vote of the union members, ends seven months of negotiations with Wynn, according to a statement from Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union.
MORE: Biden meets with UAW president, calls for union deals across auto industry
"With this new union contract, hospitality workers will be able to provide for their families and thrive in Las Vegas," Pappageorge said.
Similarly, Wynn Las Vegas applauded the tentative deal in a statement.
"We look forward to ratification of our agreement soon, and to providing the legendary service for which our employees are known to the thousands of race fans about to join us," said Michael Weaver, a spokesperson for Wynn Las Vegas.
The union said that contract negotiations remain ongoing with 24 smaller hotels and casinos where a total of roughly 18,000 union members work.
The tentative agreement with Wynn Resorts comes amid a flurry of labor deals nationwide in recent weeks that have ended prolonged workplace disputes.
PHOTO: People walk along a pedestrian bridge near the Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino, Sept. 17, 2020, in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP, FILE)
SAG-AFTRA, the union representing approximately 160,000 actors, voice talents and announcers, reached a tentative deal on Wednesday with major TV and movie studios that suspends a strike launched more than three months ago.
MORE: Actors union SAG-AFTRA reaches tentative deal to end monthslong strike
Additionally, the 'Big Three' U.S. automakers -- Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Jeep and Chrysler -- struck tentative agreements with the United Auto Workers last month to end a roughly six-week strike.
Addressing UAW members at a car plant in Illinois on Thursday, President Joe Biden celebrated the recent wave of labor organizing.
"Wall Street didn't build America," Biden said. "The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class."
"I worked hard in negotiations to represent my co-workers and to win a better life for my family," Araceli Villa Lobos, a kitchen employee at Wynn and a union member for 16 years, said in a statement.
The Culinary Workers Union represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, and is "Nevada's largest Latinx/Black/AAPI/immigrant organization," the union said, with the majority of its members Latinx.
Wynn Resorts workers in Las Vegas avert strike, reach tentative deal hours before deadline originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Wynn joins Caesars and MGM in reaching tentative deal to avoid a strike by Las Vegas hotel workers
RIO YAMAT
Updated Fri, November 10, 2023
Hotel Workers Union Vegas
Members of the Culinary Workers Union rally along the Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in Las Vegas. After a marathon week of negotiations, the Las Vegas hotel workers union says it has reached a tentative deal with Wynn Resorts. It was the last contract the Culinary Workers Union needed to avoid a strike Friday, Nov. 10, 2023, and came after the union's tentative deals with Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Over seven months of tense negotiations, mandatory daily room cleanings underscored the big issues that Las Vegas union hotel workers were fighting to address in their first contracts since the pandemic: job security, better working conditions and safety while on the job.
From the onset of bargaining, Ted Pappageorge, the chief contract negotiator for the Culinary Workers Union, had said tens of thousands of workers whose contracts expired earlier this year would be willing to go on strike to make daily room cleanings mandatory.
Without it, Pappageorge said in one of many news conferences since April, “the jobs of tens of thousands of workers are in jeopardy of cutbacks and reduction.”
It was a message that Pappageorge and the workers would repeat for months as negotiations ramped up and the union threatened to go on strike if they didn't have contracts by first light on Friday with MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts.
But by dawn Friday, the union had secured tentative labor deals with all three companies, narrowly averting a sweeping strike at 18 hotel-casinos along the Strip. Agreements with MGM and Caesars — the Strip’s two largest employers — came earlier in the week, while the settlement with Wynn Resorts was announced just a few hours before the strike deadline.
The proposed contracts need to be approved by the union's rank and file. Pappageorge said a vote will take place within the next two weeks.
In a statement, Wynn Resorts said it was pleased to reach an agreement that “fulfills our shared goal of providing outstanding benefits and overall compensation to our employees in a work environment that is second to none.” The agreement covers about 5,000 union employees at the company’s flagship hotel-casino and Encore Resorts.
Christine Cook, a uniform control attendant at Wynn, said in a statement provided by the union that her favorite parts of the new contract are "the wage increases and the retroactive pay because it will help my family and I have a better future and achieve our dreams.”
President Joe Biden sent his congratulations to the union, saying hospitality workers should always be able to provide for their families.
“These workers understand better than just about anybody that a job is about more than just a paycheck.,” Biden said in a statement. “It’s about dignity. It’s about respect. Most importantly, it’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay.’”
Terms of the deals weren't immediately released, but the union says that the proposed five-year contracts will provide workers with historic wage increases, reduced workloads and other unprecedented wins — including mandated daily room cleanings.
Before the pandemic, daily room cleanings were routine. Hotel guests could expect fresh bedsheets and new towels by dinnertime if a “Do Not Disturb" sign wasn't hanging on their hotel room doors.
But as social distancing became commonplace in 2020, hotels began to cut back on the service.
More than three years later, the once industry-wide standard has yet to make a full comeback. Some companies say it's because there are environmental benefits to offering fewer room cleanings, like saving water.
MGM Resorts and Caesars didn't respond to emailed requests for comment about the issue. Pappageorge said this week that, even as negotiations came down to the wire ahead of the union's plans to strike, the union and casino companies were the “farthest apart” on the issue.
A spokesman for Wynn Resorts said they already offer daily room cleanings and did not cut back on that service during the pandemic.
“What these companies have seen is that they’ve been able to reduce labor costs significantly if they can convince guests to reject or relinquish daily room cleaning,” Pappageorge has said while talking about the importance of protecting union jobs.
It's a fear that Las Vegas hotel workers across the board shared in interviews with The Associated Press since negotiations began in the spring — from the porters and kitchen staff who work behind the scenes to keep the Strip’s hotel-casinos running, to the cocktail servers and bellman who provide customers with the hospitality that has helped make the city famous.
During the pandemic, the hospitality industry learned how to “do more with less,” said David Edelblute, a Las Vegas-based attorney and lobbyist whose corporate clients include gaming and hospitality companies.
And that combination, he said, could be "pretty catastrophic” for the labor force.
Rory Kuykendall, a bellman at Flamingo Las Vegas, said in September after voting to authorize a strike that he wanted stronger job protection against the inevitable advancements in technology to be written into their new union contract.
“We want to make sure that we, as the workers, have a voice and a say in any new technology that is introduced at these casinos,” he said.
That includes technology already at play at some resorts: mobile check-in, automated valet tickets and robot bartenders.
Pappageorge, who led the negotiating teams that secured tentative deals this week with the casino giants, said a cut in daily room cleanings also poses health and safety concerns for the housekeepers who still had to reach a daily room quota.
Jennifer Black, a guest room attendant at Flamingo Las Vegas, described her first job in the hospitality sector as “back-breaking.”
A typical day on the job, she said, requires her to clean 13 rooms after guests have checked out. Each room takes between 30-45 minutes to clean, but rooms that haven’t been cleaned for a few days, she said, take more time to turn over.
“We're working through our lunch breaks to make it,” she said. “Our workload is far too much."
Greg Haas
Thu, November 9, 2023
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Wynn Resorts told investors Thursday they have set aside money to pay higher wages that could come with a new Culinary Union contract, but there were no revelations on when that deal would come.
The Culinary Union said negotiations are continuing this evening with Wynn and Encore. The two properties employ about 5,000 hospitality workers. The union set a deadline of 5 a.m. Friday for a contract — the last deal waiting to be approved with Las Vegas Strip resorts.
Caesars Entertainment announced a tentative agreement on Wednesday morning, followed by a Thursday announcement from MGM Resorts International. Wynn is expected to be the next domino to fall as the biggest operators on the Las Vegas Strip sign deals that would prevent a strike before the highly anticipated F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov. 16-18.
But Wynn Resorts didn’t volunteer new information during the third-quarter earnings call, and investors were already turning the page to questions about the company’s success at its Macau properties.
F1’s appeal to Wynn’s clientele also brought a lot of discussion. Wynn Las Vegas bills itself as a luxury brand — a natural match for the big-money international crowd that flocks to F1 races across the world.
“Our expectations for F1 haven’t changed one bit because as you rightly pointed out, we knew that it was our customer base that would be at that event from the beginning,” CEO Craig Billings said. The hotel is sold out for the three days of F1 events.
“We barely even put any rooms on public sale,” he said. Those rooms were priced at an average $2,533 a night over the three days.
Chief Operating Officer Brian Gullbrants said Wynn “should exceed our all-time hotel revenue record by 50% for the three-day period.” He added that gaming revenue should be some of the best ever seen.
“We have more front money in credit lined up for this event than any event we’ve had in the history of Wynn Las Vegas. And we’ve had some doozies before,” Billings said.
Billings noted a record third quarter for the company’s Wynn and Encore operations in Las Vegas. Casinos have seen big profits at the baccarat tables recently, but other operations are also profiting.
“Wynn Las Vegas delivered $220 million of adjusted property EBITDAR (earnings), up 12% on an incredibly difficult year-over-year comp. Yes, it was aided by high hold, but it was also despite the fact that we accrued during the quarter for the estimated increases associated with the new agreement with the Culinary Union,” Billings said.
“I’ve got to tell you, activity at the property was frenetic during the quarter, with hotel occupancy, restaurant covers, casino visitation, table drop and slot handle all up over what was a very strong third quarter of 2022,” he said.
The company reported a $10 million hit on operating expenses in Las Vegas as they set aside money for the Culinary deal. But that total also included money for cost-of-living raises for non-union employees, as well as costs associated with relaunching the “Awakening” show.
As Wynn carves out an even bigger share of the Las Vegas luxury market, investors remain eager for good news out of China, where things have improved significantly for Wynn over the past year. Business in Macau has returned to 85% of pre-pandemic levels, Billings said.
Billings said he expects licensing of Wynn’s UAE project — Wynn Al Marjan Island in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah — to come soon.
Operating revenues were $1.67 billion for the third quarter of 2023, an increase of $782.2 million from $889.7 million for the third quarter of 2022. The company declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share.
Wynn Resorts posts better-than-expected Q3 profit on Macau business recovery
Reuters
Thu, November 9, 2023
(Reuters) - Casino operator Wynn Resorts beat third-quarter profit estimates on Thursday, as strength in gaming, luxury retail and hotel bookings drove steady demand at its Macau properties.
The post-pandemic travel rebound in Macau has been a tailwind for casino operators such as Wynn Resorts.
The results come ahead of the Nov. 10 strike deadline from Las Vegas hospitality workers over a new labor contract.
The unions representing hospitality workers in Las Vegas have been negotiating for about seven months for higher wages, stronger protections against new technology that may threaten jobs, a reduction in steep quotas for housekeepers and improved safety for workers.
While competitors MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment have reached a tentative deal with the unions, Wynn Resorts has yet to yield an agreement.
It previously said it has negotiations scheduled with the unions on Thursday.
Shares of the company fell 4.7% in trading after the bell.
The company posted adjusted profit of 99 cents per share in the third quarter, compared with analysts' average estimate of 75 cents per share, according to LSEG data.
Its total revenue was $1.67 billion during the period, while analysts expected $1.59 billion.
(Reporting by Anandita Mehrotra and Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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