With the spotlight on Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas ahead of Super Bowl LVIII, workers at one of the NFL’s newest venues are pushing to unionize.
During a press conference Tuesday morning inside the local culinary union’s headquarters, The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations Sports Council, UNITE HERE and the NFL Players Association came together and called on Allegiant Stadium to allow its workers to join a union.
"The thing that is so puzzling here is that when the Raiders were in Oakland, all these jobs were union. Not a problem. They come to Las Vegas, they get $750 million, and yet almost all the jobs are non-union, and they are not good jobs," said D. Taylor, President of UNITE HERE.
Workers told Scripps News Las Vegas they would like to unionize to get better pay, health benefits and working conditions.
Officials claim the Raiders’ home stadium is one of the highest-grossing venues in the country and that its thousands of workers deserve to get rewarded.
“The stadium makes all the money," said Florenda Tullao, a lead cashier at Allegiant Stadium. "They just reap all the benefits and pay us minimum."
There are approximately 1,500 non-union workers at Allegiant, which includes cashiers, ushers, maintenance and concession personnel.
“We hear about the Raiders making record sales ... but at least for me, for two years I haven’t had any increase in pay, any benefits," said David Martinez, another cashier at the stadium.
Taylor said a letter was sent to 27 different Allegiant Stadium service providers and asked them to agree to a card check/neutrality agreement, allowing workers to determine if they wish to be represented by a union.
This comes just days after the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Union said it reached a tentative agreement with six more hotel-casinos covering 1,000 workers and called off a walkout that was planned for Monday morning.
Last year, the Las Vegas Strip’s three largest employers — MGM Resorts International, Caesar Entertainment and Wynn Resorts — reached deals with the union that covered 40,000 members, narrowly averting a historic strike.
Scripps News Las Vegas reached out to stadium representatives for comment but did not receive a response in time for this report.
This story was originally published by Jhovani Carrillo at Scripps News Las Vegas.
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