EDITORIAL: Culinary deal

Some 21,000 Strip workers have reason to be thankful this week: The Culinary Local 226 and the Bartenders Local 165 reached agreement on a five-year contract covering 10 properties operated by MGM Resorts International.

The unions’ old contracts around town expired June 1, and the Culinary had been putting forward increasingly hostile strike rhetoric to pressure hotel companies into closing a deal. The MGM Resorts contract, approved by union members Nov. 20, is the first new pact in place. It shouldn’t be long before pacts with Caesars Entertainment and Boyd Gaming are also finalized.

Did the Culinary’s stunts help get this deal done? Not likely. Instead, the over-the-top warnings it issued to tourists, event planners and investment bankers — claiming the first citywide hotel worker strike since 1984 was coming — caused economic harm to the valley and, by extension, union workers. The union’s organizing tactics against Station Casinos and outrageous pickets against The Cosmopolitan have been even worse.

Actual negotiations, not pointless threats, get contracts done. Good for the unions and MGM Resorts for turning marathon talks into an agreement. Perhaps now the Culinary will see fit to dial back its destructive posturing and publicize its relative labor peace — something that might actually encourage visitors to come to Las Vegas and provide union workers with paychecks.