The jaw-dropping dazzle of the Sphere and the vexing transformation of Las Vegas Boulevard into a Formula One racetrack are receiving most of the media attention these days, but the event with the most impact on the community is occurring largely behind the scenes.

The Culinary and Bartenders unions are attempting to pull off historic contract negotiations with Strip and downtown casino-resort properties. I would compare it to the legerdemain of David Copperfield, but when the labor organizations representing more than 50,000 service workers on Sept. 26 jammed the Thomas & Mack Center and voted overwhelmingly to authorize a citywide strike, it was no illusion.

Of those thousands of local rank-and-file union members, approximately 40,000 are working under expired contracts at 22 properties owned by MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment Corp., and Wynn Resorts.

The negotiations are taking place at an intriguing time with the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix approaching in November and the major casino corporations enjoying an embarrassment of riches. With MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts charting record operating profits, the union argues, there’s room for some of that financial windfall to trickle down to the workers whose jobs are integral to that success.

For the union, the big-ticket items are what it describes as winning the largest wage increases ever negotiated in the union’s history, boosts in funding for health care and pension benefits, reducing housekeeping workloads, increasing job safety and security, strengthening current technology protections, extending job security rights, and tightening language in its no-strike clause. Some might call it the consummate Culinary Christmas list.

As a reminder that there’s still work to be done, Culinary Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge answered reporters’ questions Friday during a break in a frustrating day of negotiations with Wynn Resorts. The union met with MGM and Caesars officials earlier in the week.

He reminded reporters of the impressive strike authorization vote the community recently witnessed.

“That message, I think, was very clear, sent to these companies that after five months of bargaining the patience is at an end from the workers,” Pappageorge said, adding that the workers had agreed to end a contract extension signed June 1. 

 The union also produced a report that argues service workers, and especially housekeepers, are experiencing increased workloads and greater security risks on the job. “The Human Cost of High Hotel Profits: A Survey of Las Vegas Guest Room Attendants” will surely be chided for relying on a survey of more than 1,800 housekeepers employed at the big three about their working conditions. Before writing it off as just another union flier a couple points are worth noting.

Nearly all of those surveyed say their employer kept the daily room quota attendants were responsible for while also making it harder to clean rooms on check-out day because those rooms haven’t been cleaned on a daily basis. The union contends that making room attendants shift floors and even hotel towers to complete their daily room quotas is leading to work-related injuries. The union is proposing contract language that will lower room quotas while mandating daily cleaning.

That might sound reasonable, even simple, but it comes at a time corporations are increasingly trimming, eliminating or monetizing what were once standard services guests have come to expect. Room rates have risen 29 percent since 2019, the union argues, citing Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority statistics.

In a time of audacious profits, overflow throngs of tourists and increasingly steep prices for rooms, food and beverages, it’s pretty tough to argue the companies can’t afford to maintain a higher standard. So far, it appears no one is in a mood to share the wealth.

Then there’s something stranger and potentially more troubling in the survey. Two-thirds of room attendants, according to the union, “reported that management did not provide adequate cleaning supplies and equipment.” With some hotels experiencing bed bug infestations in the wake of a coronavirus pandemic and at the start of the flu season, this a really bad look for companies experiencing record profits.

Failing to keep sufficient cleaning supplies in a mega-hotel makes about as much sense as removing the sneeze guards from the buffets. You know, back when there were buffets.

Although most eyes will be watching the issue of pay raises and benefit increases, Pappageorge spent time this week reminding people about the need for increased protections for the union’s legion of housekeepers, mostly women of color.

“Guest room attendants are the reason these massive gaming companies have record profits, but workers are also being left behind and we won’t stand for it,” he said in a statement about an industry often criticized for having too few women in positions of power at the top of the corporation. “The proposals on the table are strike issues and 95 percent of workers have already voted to authorize a strike. As the largest organization of women in Nevada, we will protect working women and we will do whatever it takes to win – including a strike against these companies if necessary.”

Casino industry leaders, whose enormous corporate footprints are found from Las Vegas to Macau, might have a hard time winning this public relations war. They’ll have to decide soon how hard they want this fight.

A strike on the Strip is one show you don’t want to watch.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in Time, Readers Digest, The Daily Beast, Reuters, Ruralite and Desert Companion, among others. He also offers weekly commentary on Nevada Public Radio station KNPR.