This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Culinary Workers Union.

It's Nevada's largest union and reports having 60,000 members.

They're hospitality workers and have historically helped Democrats win this state.

But last year, union leaders warned the Dems that they may be out of touch with voters.

So is that still the case?

Ahead of Labor Day, we're talking with Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union.

So, Ted, the Culinary Union is celebrating its 90th year.

How healthy is this union when you take into account that across the country, union membership has declined over the past several decades?

(Ted Pappageorge) Well, I think we've shown here in Nevada and in Las Vegas that that doesn't have to be the case.

And this is a, what they call a right-to-work state.

So that means that at the end of the day, members can get union benefits and don't pay their union dues.

That's designed to destroy unions, basically, and we've been able to show incredible growth.

But it's really, it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

And there's no secret in the water out here.

It's just we have to outwork the companies and we have to outwork our enemies and we have to work very hard to protect our members and their families.

-Perhaps a sign of your union strength is that all major casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are now unionized.

However, there are some who argue that those union contracts have led to the higher prices that people are seeing at the casinos.

Steve Hill of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said, in part, on this very show, "Union contracts that have been negotiated over the past couple of years have added some pretty large costs to the service provision in the destination as well...so we're having to take that into consideration as we look to price things in Las Vegas."

How would you respond to that?

-Well, I think folks like Steve Hill and others have to remember that Las Vegas isn't going to function without the workers here, and this is a number one worldwide destination that provides top quality service and customer experience.

And you have to have the best, and we do.

Our union members are skilled.

These are very physical jobs, and our members have been hit really hard with the cost of living.

And, you know, there are a lot of promises from this new administration about tackling the cost of living.

They've abandoned that, and I think we've ended up with some very fair contracts.

And I would just make one other point to Steve and some of the other folks, is that we haven't had a strike in this town for 27 years, until the Virgin Hotel, and that happened just recently.

And it was an argument about that standard.

And I would argue that we've been very reasonable with these companies.

At the same time, we have a Las Vegas dream.

Workers deserve the right to have fair wages.

They deserve the right to have health care, that they're not going to go bankrupt if they have to take their kids to the doctor, and they deserve the right to hope to be able to own a home if they work hard and save their money.

And I think we've been able to accomplish that here.

-One policy of the current President that I cannot imagine your members have an issue with is no tax on tips.

-Well, that's interesting.

It didn't happen.

There is no "no tax on tips," but there is a tax credit that made it through this big ugly bill that we saw.

But what a lot of folks don't realize, there was a lot of bipartisan work on that.

Senator Jacky Rosen, Senator Masto had bills.

So did Congressman Steven Horsford.

Senator Rosen used a procedure called unanimous consent that, while the big ugly bill was being fought over, her and Republican Senator Ted Cruz passed it through the Senate as a stop gap if it didn't make it through the big ugly bill.

So, look, we're going to see where that ends up.

There's a couple things that are problems with this tax credit.

-It's a tax deduction, actually, right-- -Well, yeah.

- --not a tax credit?

That might be more helpful if it was.

-Well, but I would say two things: One, you got to be making the tips to be able to deduct the taxes, and we're seeing a real downturn that is questionable and problematic.

But the other thing is this, is that there's a marriage tax penalty.

If you have two tip earners that are married, there's 100% penalty on this credit/deduction.

It also doesn't cover automatic gratuities.

If you have large parties or a partial buyout of restaurants or a full buyout, it doesn't apply to that.

The tip earner has to actually remove that out of their taxes.

And then the worst part is, is that they're temporary.

But all the tax cuts for the billionaires are permanent.

Look, our goal is to work with our congressional delegation and to be very vigilant with the Treasury and the IRS.

We've had a history of fighting with the IRS for fair taxation for tip earners.

This isn't new.

And it's not etched in stone that tip earners are taxed.

That law was legislated during the Reagan administration.

But since then, Senator Harry Reid was a champion for tip earners, for example.

We've had lots of battles.

We negotiated during the pandemic for a 60% reduction in the tip allocation, the rate that you agree that you're taxed at.

But then when that went away, the IRS, we think, kind of went overboard, and so we're welcoming the relief.

There's a lot of work to be done.

-I want to read you the title of a recent New York Times article.

It's "Union Leaders Get Tough With Democrats as Members Drift Toward Trump."

Is that the case for the Culinary Union?

-No.

That's a little bit of flamboyance in the title.

The majority of our members voted for Kamala Harris and working-class issues.

But the reality is, is that DC politicians and national Democrats, they have been tone deaf on this issue of the cost of living.

The economy has shown to be strong, but working-class folks are getting left behind and rich are getting richer and richer.

And that's really what we're talking about.

So what we've seen is that this administration campaigned and won on trying to lower the cost of living.

They've abandoned it completely, and they're busy arresting dishwashers and landscapers and fighting culture wars.

And what we're saying to national politicians and this administration is that you need to pay attention to the cost of living.

And working class voters, that's number one.

-When you say "arresting dishwashers" under the increased immigration enforcement under this administration, I mean, are your dishwashers getting arrested here in Las Vegas?

-Well, we've got two of our members.

One's a 40-year member that's in detention right now, and he's got a hearing this week.

It's just an abomination, and it's unAmerican what's going on.

-The member that you spoke of, are you able to tell us whether he has a criminal history?

-Well, that's what happens.

What happens is, is folks may have gotten stopped for drug possession or whatever years ago.

His was 20 years ago.

He had a plea bargain.

And he paid his price, and he's been a functioning member of society.

But we're hoping that this doesn't continue.

What we'd like to see from this administration is that the folks that have to work in construction, they have to work in hospitality, they have to work on the farms and agriculture that this greatest economy on Earth needs.

The United States economy is the greatest economy in the world; but we need workers, and immigrant workers are a part of that.

So this kind of fantasy that you're somehow going to take out all these workers and somehow we're going to function, it's going to be harmful to our economy.

That's what we think.

And what we think is the system needs to be fixed.

There needs to be law and order at the border, and violent criminals should be deported.

But folks that are here working and have families should have a chance to be here and work, and they should have a pathway to be American citizens.

-In that New York Times article I mentioned, you said that prior to this past election, you were warning that Nevada could end up voting for Trump, that Trump could win Nevada, a Republican taking this state for the first time in 20 years.

Do you think anyone is listening now?

Are the Democrats listening now?

-Well, I don't know.

But I think that Democrats and Republicans are off track here, in a way.

And what we really have to do, we think, is pay attention to both sides of the coin, because this idea of mass deportations of a workforce that actually is needed, mass tariffs and threats to our allies that are also our best customers, the fear was a slump.

Our members are calling it a "Trump slump."

And the reality is that slump is here, at least for Las Vegas, for our members in the state of Nevada.

So look, what we're seeing and what we're hearing from our members is that they're just very worried.

They're very concerned.

And what, what we need this administration to do is essentially walk and chew gum at the same time.

You can enforce the border, you can fight for free trade and fair trade, but also understand that travel, tourism, and hospitality, it's the number one industry in the state of Nevada.

But in every major metropolitan city--LA, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Miami--it's number two or number three in revenue and job creation.

So there has to be real correction with this administration to understand that you're harming the economy, and we don't want it to ripple out any farther.

-I imagine the Culinary Union is already gearing up for the 2026 midterms.

-Well, I would say no.

I would say that what we're concerned right now is this Trump slump is number one.

Our members are concerned.

We've seen targeted layoffs.

We've seen, you know, restaurants closed on the Strip or hours reduced.

You know, restaurants might have been open seven days, only open six days in some of our hotels.

-Is that what you mean by "targeted layoffs"?

-Yeah.

But plus also, 25% of our members are part time.

This is-- When business is normal, they're working.

But if the business has a downturn like it does now, then those are the first folks that lose hours.

They lose their shifts.

And so that's our number one concern, is to make sure that-- and to work with our members to make sure that our contracts are followed, that workloads are not increased if cuts are made.

And that's our job.

Now, at the same time, you know, we can work very hard for something in our contract, and politicians can take it away.

-The Culinary Union certainly played-- Well, I want you to fill this word in for me.

What kind of a role did the Culinary Union play in last year's election?

-Well, what happens for us is that housekeepers, cooks, food servers, and bartenders take a leave of absence, and they come to the union to join our neighborhood walk program.

And they knock on doors, they talk to their neighbors and our members, and they register people to vote and encourage them to vote and educate them about the issues.

Our members volunteer in a significant way.

We have probably over 1,000 shop stewards, you know, workplace leaders that are trained to help folks enforce the contract.

But also, for example, we've had a big issue on the daily room cleaning, the idea that Las Vegas should have full service.

And we've had some real fights with our state Democrats who removed the regulations on that.

And for our members-- -Let's stop there to remind our viewers of that situation.

This was something that happened during covid, mandatory daily room cleanings, but then the state legislature got rid of that.

And so as a result, you looked at the Democrats who voted to get rid of that mandate and you said, we're not endorsing you, correct?

-No, that's correct.

But I would just remind folks that, look, there's been regulations in state law to mandate cleaning upon checkout.

What happened during covid was this, this issue of-- It's a long standing issue about cleaning, daily cleaning, whether it should happen or whether you should just leave the rooms dirty and customers can decide or pay more for cleaning.

So what we argued is that we argued for those regulations.

Democrats, state Democrats didn't support our members and our housekeepers, and they feel it's not only just a workload issue, but it's a safety issue.

And so absolutely, we told those Democrats, we're not going to support you.

And at the end of the day, our members, they might be Republicans, Independents, or Democrats.

The majority of them, they're with Democrats and they're working-class folks, so that's where they tend to go.

But it's not etched in stone.

And so our members are going to listen to folks that really pay attention to this issue of the cost of living and also take on issues like this daily room cleaning issue.

-Ted Pappageorge, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Great.

Thank you.