LAS VEGAS — In two separate shift meetings Nov. 13, members of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 voted overwhelmingly to approve a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with textile services company Mission Industries, the union reports.
The new contract covers approximately 1,600 workers at six Las Vegas industrial laundry plants that launder sheets, towels, uniforms and linens for about 50 southern Nevada hotels and casinos.
“We are thrilled that the negotiating committee was able to achieve its goal of making the ‘Las Vegas Dream’ real for laundry workers in Las Vegas,” says Kevin Kline, the Culinary Union’s chief negotiator.
Highlights of the CBA:
– The contract’s length is five years, expiring in March 2012.
– Mission Industries workers and their families will join the Culinary Health Fund, which offers full family health insurance with no worker premiums, beginning next April.
– A job security package includes new seniority rules, grievance and arbitration training, and health and safety committees.
– There is succession language that protects the contract if Mission Industries is sold.
Representatives of Mission Industries and a committee of rank-and-file Culinary Union members negotiated the new agreement. Eleventh-hour negotiations on Monday afternoon averted a strike. Union workers had been prepared to walk out early Tuesday morning when the laundry plants opened.
“People often don’t think about the workers who are behind the scenes and who the customers rarely see,” Kline says. “This is a historic day for the Mission laundry workers.”
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 represents more than 60,000 workers including hotel and casino workers on the Las Vegas Strip and at downtown properties, as well as workers at McCarran Airport and at industrial laundry plants throughout Las Vegas.
Mission Industries processes more than a million pounds of hospitality linen daily.
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