Janitors’ lawsuit might dirty national image of Strip resorts

The workers appeared like apparitions out of the woodwork after most of the customers had gone home, cleaning and polishing some of the best restaurants, lounges and nightclubs in Las Vegas.

While the janitors were nearly anonymous, many of the establishments are renowned for their hip, high-end atmosphere. There's CatHouse at the Luxor, AquaKnox at The Venetian, Hard Rock Café, Trader Vic's at Planet Hollywood, Red Square and rumjungle at the Mandalay Bay to name a few.

At such places, it's common for customers to drop more on a meal or a few drinks in a single night than members of the Bravo Pro Maintenance cleanup crew made in a week, or even a month. When the employees complained, there was no one to listen. The establishments hired their employer to provide a cleanup service. If the janitors had a problem, they needed to take it up with Bravo Pro.

Now some of those nearly anonymous workers have done that and more. Through attorneys Matthew Callister and Brooke Bohlke, a former Bravo Pro janitor has sued the company and accused it of exploiting workers, and in doing so has metaphorically indicted some of the most popular restaurants and nightclubs in Las Vegas for turning a blind eye to Third World employment practices. The class-action lawsuit accuses Bravo Pro of ripping off a couple hundred late-night janitors.

Callister admits he picked a tough time to take up the cause of a group of largely Spanish-speaking people with marginal immigration paperwork. After all, the local unemployment rate is a record 13.1 percent, and nationwide anti-immigration fervor is growing.

But, Callister reasons, what better time to focus on the need to protect the rights of all workers? People might discriminate, but federal labor law does not: Even illegal immigrant employees are protected.

"So many people need any job," he says. "People are willing to work for less and be stiffed on what they're entitled to because they're desperate. But that doesn't make it right."

Because the alleged employee abuse has been taking place under the noses of not only the upscale restaurant and nightclub owners, but the privileged casino licensees from whom they lease space, the Bravo Pro litigation threatens to reverberate nationally. In July, the Gaming Control Board fined Planet Hollywood $500,000 for failing to provide proper oversight of the notorious Privé nightclub, which leases space from the Strip resort. It's hardly a stretch to imagine the Bravo Pro case taking a similar course.

"When you have a private business operating within a privileged license-holder casino-hotel, is it something that the board should take an interest in or not?" Callister asked. "Obviously, I think it should."

The janitorial company is accused of promising to pay workers $1,300 every two weeks in exchange for 13-hour workdays, no time off and, of course, no overtime. Instead, the workers allege, the company immediately fell behind in paying them. When they finally were compensated, they averaged about $4.40 per hour for their time cleaning some of the fanciest rooms on the Strip.

Some angered Bravo Pro employees report having tried to secure work directly through the restaurant or nightclub. But they were rebuffed by management, which Callister asserts had full knowledge of the sweet deal it had cut with the maintenance company.

Bravo Pro representatives, former workers say, circulate through the Hispanic community, talking up the availability of janitorial jobs. There's been no shortage of workers willing to put in long hours for the promise of $7 per hour.

"They catch them in a kind of perpetual indentured servitude," Callister says. "It's a huge embarrassment, and it does appear to be, tragically, a case of Mexicans targeting entry-level Mexicans ... with the full knowledge and complicity of the owners of the restaurants who knew better or should have known you could not provide that service at that price."

The case not only invites scrutiny from the Department of Labor, which has a history of interest in such issues, but also opens the door for criticism from a savvy labor organization willing to raise workers rights issues on resort properties.

Meanwhile, the number in the phone book for Bravo Pro Maintenance has been disconnected.

Gone but not forgotten, its former employees threaten to haunt the resort industry.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.