In 1999, more than a thousand Culinary Union Local 226 members crowded the sidewalk in front of the under-construction Venetian hotel-casino protesting the lack of a union contract.
The Venetian’s owner — Sheldon Adelson — was virulently anti-union, and was determined to keep his property free of organized labor contracts.
But now, 25 years later, Adelson’s company — Las Vegas Sands — has sold the Venetian and its sister property Palazzo to Apollo Global Management. Adelson passed away in 2021 and the property’s new owners decided to let workers decide whether they wanted to unionize.
The result: A union contract approved by 99 percent of Venetian workers.
And it wasn’t just the history — the 25-year fight to unionize the Venetian was the Culinary’s longest campaign to date. It’s also the fact that the Venetian was the last non-union property on the Las Vegas Strip; now every hotel-casino on Las Vegas Boulevard between Russell Road and Sahara Avenue has a Culinary contract.
Culinary Union secretary-treasurer Ted Pappageorge said at an event Thursday to mark the signing of the contract that he had faith that the Venetian would one day be a union property.