This has not prevented Ted Pappageorge, the former president of the Culinary Workers Union, current Secretary-Treasurer and well-paid lead negotiator, from modestly stating last week, “These are the best contracts ever.”
But no concrete details have been made public, and no worker has been able to review any tentative agreement in full. The announcement of the TA’s by the Culinary Workers Union has been accompanied by a barrage of propaganda from corporate, union and government officials singing its praises. Union bureaucrats finalized the third so-called “groundbreaking” TA with Wynn Resorts only three hours before the strike deadline arrived. A second agreement covering some 25,400 workers at MGM Resorts International was announced on Thursday, less than 24 hours before the strike deadline. The first agreement with Caesars Entertainment, covering 10,000 workers, was announced by the union on Wednesday morning. Hours before a 5 am strike deadline last Friday, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 announced they had reached tentative agreements (TA) with all the casinos, and that there would be no strike of its tens of thousands of members on the Las Vegas Strip. A worker outside the Culinary Union on July 26, 2023, in Las Vegas.
