LAS VEGAS (AP) — Thousands of hospitality union workers on the Las Vegas Strip have reached a tentative deal with the Venetian and Palazzo resorts, a first for employees at the sprawling Italian-inspired complex that opened 25 years ago and quickly became a Sin City landmark.
The Culinary Workers Union announced Tuesday on the social platform X that the deal came together around 6:30 a.m. after a year of negotiations. It covers over 4,000 hotel and casino workers, from housekeepers and cocktail servers to bartenders and porters.
In a short video shared by the union, a housekeeper at the Venetian said the pending contract is proof that “things change if we actually voice our concern and have a group of people that back us up.”
“First-time contract for Venetian,” she said, smiling. “It’s a very historical event. It’s something we can be proud of.”
The deal needs to be approved by the union’s rank and file. Bethany Khan, a union spokesperson, said it mirrors the major wins secured in recent contracts awarded to 40,000 hospitality workers at 18 Strip properties owned or operated by casino giants MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts.
Those wins included a 32% pay increase over five years, housekeeping workload reductions and improved job security amid advancements in technology and artificial intelligence.
The bump in pay under those contracts will amount to an average $35 hourly wage by the end of the contracts, according to the union. Workers at these properties were making about $26 hourly with benefits before winning their latest contracts in November.
Described by the Culinary Union as their “best contracts ever,” the deals ended lengthy labor disputes that had brought the threat of a historic strike to the Strip as the city prepared to debut its new Formula One racetrack.
Patrick Nichols, Venetian's president and CEO, said in a statement that the company looks forward to its workers ratifying the contract.
“The Venetian Resort Las Vegas has a long history of respecting our Team Members and putting their needs and interests at the center of our decision-making process,” Nichols said.
The Venetian opened in 1999 and the adjoining Palazzo in 2007. Gondolas gliding through canals both outside near Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalks and indoors through a plaza with stores and restaurants have made it a Sin City landmark.
The union says it is now turning its attention to winning five-year contracts for workers at the massive Sphere venue and at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the Strip’s newest megaresort. Negotiations just off the Strip at the nearby Virgin Hotels are also ongoing.
FILE - A gondolier steers his boat beneath a quiet pedestrian walkway at the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas on Feb. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
GENEVA (AP) — Soccer great Zvonimir Boban says he does not want to be president of UEFA.
It needed “a real football man,” he suggested on Thursday, in a barb at technocrats who he claimed think they are bigger than the game.
The former Croatia and AC Milan player resigned as UEFA chief of football in January in protest at president Aleksander Čeferin moving to change legal statutes that would let him stay in office longer.
Čeferin later called Boban a clown and his allies suggested the dramatic exit was positioning to one day challenge for the presidency — a claim denied in an interview with Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport published on Thursday.
“I don’t have any interest. But a real football man in UEFA is really needed,” said Boban, who previously had a senior role at FIFA under its president Gianni Infantino. He left in 2019 to work for Milan.
“In that sense, I say it with bitterness, having fought for changes at UEFA, like FIFA before that, I was of no use for anything,” Boban said.
UEFA was approached for comment.
Čeferin and Infantino are both lawyers first elected in 2016 in fallout from turmoil at UEFA and FIFA during American and Swiss federal investigations of international soccer officials. Infantino was previously UEFA general secretary for more than six years.
“Unfortunately for years the soccer technocracy has been all the rage inside the system, depriving it of its values, which instead it should always represent and defend,” Boban told Gazzetta.
“These people think they’re more important than the game, than the players, than the coaches, than the fans and even the actual soccer institutions,” he said.
Boban joined UEFA in 2021 to be a senior advisor to Čeferin, who called his former advisor a clown in February at the UEFA Congress.
“I’m sorry about the way our relationship ended,” Boban said on Thursday, adding they had not spoken since.
Boban resigned in January citing his “total disapproval” of the legal move that would let Čeferin stay in office for 15 years through 2031.
UEFA has a 12-year term limit for its president among anti-corruption reforms passed in response to the criminal investigations that rocked international soccer bodies.
However, Čeferin steered through an amendment approved by UEFA member federations in February that would not count his first three years — technically completing the mandate of predecessor Michel Platini, who was removed from office — against his 12-year limit.
Within hours, Čeferin then pledged he will leave office in 2027 and not seek a final four-year mandate.
Some of UEFA's 55 member federations have since said they support their Slovenian leader staying on.
AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf in Rome contributed.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Cristiano Ronaldo, the all-time leading goalscorer in the Champions League, receives a special award from UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin in recognition of his achievements in the competition, during the Champions League, league phase, draw, in Monaco, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Former Juventus and PSG Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon receives the 2024 UEFA President's Award from UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin during the Champions League, league phase, draw, in Monaco, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
FILE - Zvonimir Bobanin Kazan, Russia, on Nov. 26, 2016. Former UEFA official Zvonimir Boban, has been talking Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024 about why he resigned in January in a dispute with its president Aleksander Ceferin. He says he does not want to be UEFA president. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File)
