May 28, 2002 - MGM Mirage is the latest Las Vegas casino company to reach a tentative five-year contract with union negotiators, leaving nearly 80 percent of the city's unionized gaming work force with deals to ratify. 
                  
Financial terms of the MGM Mirage contract, which was reached at about 3 a.m.  Monday, match those of agreements with Mandalay Resort Group, Park Place Entertainment, Harrah's Entertainment and the Tropicana. 
                  
Leaders of Culinary Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165 will now turn their efforts to negotiating contracts with 18 second- and third-tier operators of the north Strip, downtown and Henderson. 
                  
The unions have set a Saturday strike deadline with strike preparations continuing Monday, although it was unclear whether failure to negotiate new deals would lead to a work stoppage. 
                  
"We have to figure that out. We have a lot of work to do," said Culinary staff director D.Taylor. 
                  
The MGM Mirage contract was reached at the close of a nearly 12-hour negotiating session at the company's Golden Nugget and, like the other deals, awaits the approval of the union members. 
                  
The newest deal would see an estimated 15,000 union workers at MGM Mirage properties each receive hourly wage and benefit increases of $3.23 1/2 over the five years, with the bulk of the money preserving health coverage. Employers currently foot the cost of health premiums for their union members. 
                  
Union negotiators had been pushing to protect the health plan via two-year contracts, arguing that rising health care costs and the uncertain economy, especially after the terrorist attacks, made it difficult to reach longer agreements. 
                  
"First and foremost, we thought from the very get-go a five-year deal was of great importance," said MGM Mirage Senior Vice President Alan Feldman. "The numbers make sense because we agree that protecting the benefits is of key importance. 
                  
"We still have to be vigilant about managing health care costs. No one's expecting them to go down over the next five years. The question is how high will they go." 
                  
Negotiators for the two sides also worked to nail down wording dictating how workload reductions will be managed for Bellagio housekeepers. 
                  
Culinary representatives have made the issue a top priority, arguing that the construction of larger, more amenities-filled hotel rooms during the past 13 years has drastically increased the daily pressure on 9,000 hotel maids. 
                  
Union sources say MGM Mirage executives were reluctant to put in writing methods for dealing with the issue at the company's up-market Bellagio, which expects high levels of service from its employees. 
                  
But MGM Mirage's Feldman said it was never an issue. 
                  
"We had a meeting. We listened to their concerns," he noted. 
                  
The result: MGM Mirage agreed to match the terms of the Park Place-Harrah's-Aztar deals and will reduce housekeeper workloads on heavy checkout days and will establish special teams to clean human waste left on hotel room walls, floors and beds.
                  
No vote has been scheduled to ratify the contracts, which could be approved at the property, company or citywide level by the unions' 47,000 members. Union leaders had yet to select a method by Monday afternoon. 
                  
"We are so excited because we've almost won this fight," said Jeannett Johns, a Golden Nugget housekeeper who is a member of the unions' MGM Mirage negotiating committee. 
                  
Luxor housekeeper Rosemary Garcia echoed Johns' sentiment. 
                  
"We got what we asked for," said Garcia, a member of the unions' Mandalay negotiating committee. 
                  
The two women participated in a Monday morning union event outside of the south Strip's Showcase Mall, where an estimated 300 housekeepers and their children handed out pro-union leaflets to passing tourists. 
                  
"Please help our moms!" began the single-page handouts. "They have to clean too many hotel rooms every day. They get hurt on the job a lot." 
                  
The literature listed the megaresorts of Park Place, Harrah's, Mandalay Resort Group, MGM Mirage and Aztar's Tropicana as operators who "have agreed to help our moms so they don't have to work as hard." 
                  
"But the rest of the hotels on the Strip have not. Our moms will go on strike on June 1st if these hotels won't sign a new union contract." 
                  
Some downtown and north Strip gaming executives privately say it will be financially difficult for them to meet the terms of the recent deals. Negotiating sessions are set for Wednesday and Thursday. 
                  
Several properties in the two Las Vegas gaming markets have struggled throughout much of the past decade, with competition from new Strip megaresorts, the growth of Laughlin, and the emergence of tribal casinos in Southern California and the Phoenix area cutting into their revenues. 
                  
Union leaders, including the Culinary's Taylor, have said they will not negotiate a different, less-costly health plan for the remaining properties. 
                  
"We've made it clear we're not going to have a two-tier health system," Taylor said. 
                  
But he also noted Monday that the union has allowed downtown operators to phase-in compensation increases over a longer period than their Strip counterparts.

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(c) 2002, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MGG,