Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

The Cosmopolitan agrees to 4-year union contract

Cosmopolitan

The Cosmopolitan.

Updated Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015 | 4:17 p.m.

The Cosmopolitan and a major Las Vegas union announced today that they have concluded negotiating a contract that will cover about 2,000 employees at the nearly 5-year-old resort.

The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 said that it and the Bartenders Union Local 165 have agreed to a four-year contract with the Cosmopolitan that includes workers in the food, beverage, housekeeping, bar and lounge, and bell departments. Employees have voted on and accepted the contract, a Culinary statement said.

Since it opened in late 2010, the Cosmopolitan had been one of only a few major Strip resorts without a union contract A tense relationship between the Culinary and the resort’s previous ownership led to major demonstrations in the past.

The contract comes a year after the private equity firm Blackstone bought the Cosmopolitan for $1.73 billion. Both the new ownership and the union signaled in February that they wanted a productive relationship when they held a press conference and champagne toast beneath the resort’s multi-story chandelier.

Geoconda Arguello-Kline, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said in a statement today that the union saw the leadership of Blackstone and Cosmopolitan CEO William McBeath “as a positive turning point in this long awaited partnership.”

“We welcome new members to the union, which turned 80 years old this year, and we are committed to continue raising the standard of living for hospitality workers and their families throughout this great city,” Arguello-Kline said.

The contract includes “successorship language” that protects workers’ seniority, wages and benefits if the resort is ever sold again, according to Culinary spokesperson Bethany Khan.

It also guarantees the Cosmopolitan’s owner will remain neutral in the organizing process at any future casinos it acquires in Las Vegas, Khan said. The contract otherwise sticks to the union’s standard terms for wages, job security and health benefits, she said.

Not long after the Cosmopolitan opened, a majority of workers the union would represent signed cards in favor of organizing, but the union and the resort’s previous owner, Deutsche Bank, never agreed on a contract.

As tensions rose in 2013, protesters affiliated with the union staged multiple demonstrations against the resort.

They sat in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard and on the resort’s casino floor, intentionally provoking mass arrests. Union demonstrators that year were also captured on video insulting people entering the Cosmopolitan, including calling them “losers” and “beached whales.”

But the situation changed when Blackstone and McBeath, who was appointed last December, took over. Both reiterated today what they had previously expressed in February: The days when the Culinary and the Cosmopolitan had an adversarial relationship are gone.

“This contract is an example of when multiple parties have a vested interest in the outcome, lives can be changed,” McBeath said in the statement. “I am pleased that a contract has been finalized as we at The Cosmopolitan pride ourselves on creating great relationships with our CoStars and providing them with a positive work environment.”

Similarly, Jon Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, said that after acquiring the resort last year, his firm “made it a priority to find a resolution as quickly as possible to the satisfaction of all parties.”

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