More than 500 Las Vegas hotel workers employed at Trump International Hotel voted to unionize last December and, despite Trump's stonewalling, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has certified that union. The newly unionized workers are now demanding to negotiate a contract with hotel management even though management intends to appeal the ruling. Alice Ollstein reports:
“We’re just waiting for a contract,” housekeeper Maria Jaramillo told ThinkProgress. “We deserve one. We’re not second-class workers. So we’re here, waiting for him.”
Despite the new ruling in their favor, the workers may have to keep waiting. The hotel’s decision to appeal is in keeping with their longstanding efforts to prevent their employees from organizing. Workers told ThinkProgress they were subjected to intimidation by their supervisors and the “union avoidance” consulting firm they hired.
“They pressured us a lot [to vote no],” housekeeper Marisela Olvera told ThinkProgress. “They told us the union only wants our money, that if we supported the union we’d lose our jobs, that the company would put our names on a blacklist and no other hotels in Las Vegas would hire us. They told us to think of what our children would do if we were out of work. Everyone was very stressed. People were afraid. But bendito sea Diós, we still won, even with all that pressure.”
This is apparently how Trump plans to Make America Great Again, by ignoring workers’ wishes, intimidating them, and denying them bargaining leverage.