LAS VEGAS – As he arrived here for the final presidential debate workers at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel gave him a real-world reminder of his labor law-breaking. Their goal: To push him and his managers into bargaining for a contract.
As part of a week of events highlighting the real estate mogul’s refusal to recognize and bargain with their unions, Unite Here Locals 226 and 165, workers picketed and rallied at the hotel. The Las Vegas events are part of weeks of protests at Trump properties nationwide.
But just to make sure Trump got the point, the afternoon of the Oct. 19 debate, some 400 workers erected a symbolic wall of taco trucks in front of Trump’s hotel, while handing out free tacos to participants. Many Trump Las Vegas hotel workers are Latinos and Latinas.
Progressive and Latino groups, including Ma Familia Vota, the state AFL-CIO, For Our Future and She Wins We Win, joined the Oct. 19 event.
“Mr. Trump, the 50 percent co-owner of the property is legally required to negotiate with the Culinary Union”—Local 226 — “after the National Labor Relations Board certified the union election earlier this year,” local spokeswoman Bethany Khan explained.
“Because Mr. Trump’s company has refused to bargain, the Culinary Union and Unite Here called for a national #BoycottTrump of Trump hotels and of businesses Trump owns, has invested in, or has partnered with until the Trump Hotel Las Vegas honors its legal duty to bargain with the union. The national boycott is supported by the AFL-CIO.”
As Trump faced off that evening against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, unionists followed their demonstration with a debate-watching party. The next day, they headed out onto the hustings, again, “to launch a massive early-vote campaign,” Unite Here said.
And to show solidarity with other oppressed groups, the two locals also participated in the Las Vegas Pride Parade on Oct. 20.
Trump and Clinton will debate the economy, immigration reform, the federal debt, Social Security and Medicare, foreign policy and fitness for the Oval Office. The moderator/questioner will be Chris Wallace of the pro-Trump Fox network.
Members of the two Unite Here locals, plus many of the 1,500 Trump Las Vegas workers, demand that Trump’s minions at the hotel obey the NLRB’s bargaining orders. The Trump hotel workers voted last December to join the two Unite Here locals.
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