On the Picket Line

Las Vegas hotel workers win 69-day strike at Virgin Hotels

By Maggie Trowe
February 10, 2025
Workers at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas ended 69-day strike Jan. 22, winning key demands, including wage increase. Above, picket in November. Strike won much-needed union solidarity.
Culinary Workers Local 226Workers at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas ended 69-day strike Jan. 22, winning key demands, including wage increase. Above, picket in November. Strike won much-needed union solidarity.

The 700 members of Culinary Workers Local 226 and of Bartenders Local 165, both UNITE HERE affiliates, voted unanimously to end a 69-day strike Jan. 22 after bosses at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas met most of their demands.

The bosses, who had offered a paltry 30 cents an hour wage increase and then refused to negotiate, instead demanding binding arbitration, caved in and agreed to a contract similar to that won last year by the rest of the 50,000-member union, which represents Nevada casino, hotel and restaurant workers.

The five-year pact includes a $4.32 an hour wage increase for nontipped workers and $2.16 for tipped workers.

Strikers had maintained picket lines around the large hotel 24/7 since Nov. 15. They carried out a spirited march to the Las Vegas Strip, where many casino hotels are located; organized picket line meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas; and social activities, such as a Noche Cubana and a taco and pupusa night. Virgin owners hired strikebreakers and sent security guards out to try to snatch up picket signs and banners.

Unions in the area and beyond extended solidarity. “The city came together for us,” striker Adriana Kimber told Channel 8 News. “The fact that they honked for us and supported us really helped.”

UNITE HERE National President Gwen Mills and a delegation of Local 2 union members, who recently won a 12-week hotel strike in San Francisco, visited the picket line in solidarity Jan. 6.