Just days before the start of Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, Nevada’s Culinary Union announced a drive to organize the about 1,500 nonunion workers at Allegiant Stadium, site of this year’s gridiron showdown between the 49ers and Chiefs.
The Super Bowl is “great for everybody, except many of the workers at the stadium,” UNITE HERE President D. Taylor said February 6 at the headquarters of the Culinary Union, Local 226. The Culinary Union, together with the Bartenders Union, Local 165, represents about 60,000 workers at Nevada hotels and casinos, primarily in Las Vegas and Reno.
Before the Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020, Taylor continued, they got $750 million in public funds to help build a new stadium.
“We were promised good jobs,” he said, but instead, got “workers making $13 an hour, with no medical benefits. When the Raiders were in Oakland, all these jobs were union.”
The nonunion jobs include concession-stand workers, ticket-takers, ushers, and cleaners at the 65,000-seat Allegiant Sttadium. “We don’t have the basic stuff,” said David Martinez, clad in a red union T-shirt, who makes $14.25 an hour as a lead cashier. The father of four children, he said he hasn’t gotten a raise after two years on the job, and “last year, I had no vacation or [health] insurance benefits.”
If the Raiders’ players have a union, he asks, why can’t stadium workers?
“We need to be here for you,” NFL Players Association President JC Tretter, a retired offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers and Cleveland Browns, told the stadium workers.
UNITE HERE asked the Raiders for a neutrality agreement last month. Team president Sandra Douglass Morgan responded on Jan. 25 that “the Raiders organization will always respect the legal right of employees to select a bargaining representative of their choosing.” However, she added that she could not speak for the more than 25 independent companies that employ workers in the stadium.
Walmart’s starting pay is higher than that, it was minimum $11 nationwide just a few years ago and I know it’s gone up a bit since
Ah my search must’ve given me old results, thanks!