Culinary vows pickets unless deadline reached

Three days of picketing will begin Thursday followed by a possible strike next week if an agreement on a new contract between Mission Industries and the Culinary union is not reached by midnight tonight, union officials said Wednesday.

Culinary Local 226 said if a new contract is not reached by the deadline, the union will terminate contract extensions that workers have been operating under since October 2006.

Culinary lead negotiator Kevin Kline said the pickets will go up outside delivery areas at a number of casinos when Mission trucks are scheduled to arrive.

The union will also pass out leaflets in front of Strip and downtown casinos as well as at McCarran International Airport.

“We plan on calling for a strike and not lingering much longer,” Kline said. “We’ll know in the next few days whether the strike will be next week and when next week.”

The main sticking point in the negotiations is the union’s desire to bring the laundry workers into the union’s health plan, which doesn’t require out-of-pocket payments from workers.

“We’ve made a lot of progress on workplace safety and worker’s issues,” Culinary spokeswoman Pilar Weiss said Tuesday. “We’re hung up on the economics to get to the health plan.”

The laundry workers’ current health plan provides limited coverage for them and their children but it does not cover spouses. It also includes coverage caps.

Kline said the union is willing to agree to a two-year wage increase freeze but it wants the health plan to begin this year.

The laundry wants the health plan to begin in the fifth year of the contract.

If the Culinary walks out, it would be the first Culinary strike in five years.

Mission Industries serves nearly 50 hotel casinos throughout the valley.

MGM Mirage spokesman Gordon Absher said the laundry has assured its customers that service will not be interrupted if there is a strike.

Mission Industries provides sheets, pillow covers and towels, tablecloths and napkins at restaurants and dry cleaning services for uniforms.

The Culinary, along with Bartenders Local 165, set a similar deadline in 2002 that led to an eight-day strike at the Golden Gate.

A deadline also was given to nine downtown casinos earlier this month, but all the properties reached new five-year contracts before the deadline.

Both the union and the lead negotiator for the downtown properties at the time that the deadline was issued that no strike seemed imminent. They said the deadline was more of a formality aimed at getting negotiators more focused on completing an agreement.

However, that doesn’t seem to be the case with this one.

On Oct. 9, the union started an ad campaign on mobile billboards to increase awareness of the negotiations.

The ad had a photo of a man covered discretely by a strategically placed newspaper.

The union continues to distribute a similar ad card to pedestrians along the Strip.

On Sept. 26, Mission Industries’ 1,500 employees began registering for strike benefits. The union announced the formation of an $80 million strike fund on Sept. 4.

It is the first negotiations between Mission Industries and the Culinary union, which obtained took over the contract after the Culinary’s 2004 merger with UNITE.

Mission Industries did not respond to numerous requests for comment Tuesday.

The Culinary union and Bartenders Union Local 165, which are still negotiating with the Tropicana, Golden Gate, Jerry’s Nugget and Binion’s, have not set cancellation dates for other ongoing talks.

Contact reporter Arnold M. Knightly at aknightly@reviewjournal.com or (702) 477-3893.