Question of the Day - 02 February 2025

Obviously, this question was submitted before the Culinary Union strike against Virgin Hotels Las Vegas was settled. The union and management came to an agreement on January 22. 

Virgin is owned by a consortium: an investment management firm, Virgin Group, owned by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, LiUNA Pension Fund of Eastern and Central Canada (LPFCEC), Fengate Asset Management, and Juniper Capital.

LPFCEC is based in Oakville, Ontario, and manages more than CA$11 billion in pension-fund assets, with upwards of 150,000 current members in five Canadian provinces and over 27,500 pensioners and other beneficiaries. 

Fengate, with offices in Oakville and Vancouver, Canada, plus Houston and Tokyo, is an investment firm focusing on real estate, infrastructure, and private equity and manages more than $700 million in assets.

Juniper Capital is an energy-investment firm based in Houston, with approximately $1.7 billion of cumulative equity commitments. It prides itself on "working with high-quality management teams to provide equity capital to demonstrate the value and productive potential of oil and gas properties located primarily in the continental United States," according to the company brochure. They also make direct investments in real estate and "advise a variety of institutional clients with a focus on value creation." 

So there you have it. Big business owns Virgin and the strike for a new contract with higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions, lasted 69 days.

The union and management took nearly 20 months after the previous contract expired to come to an agreement, primarily due to the fact that Virgin, though privately owned, has struggled to stay afloat since it opened in March 2021 at the tail end of the pandemic. In a mutually agreed-on move, Mohegan departed as the casino manager at the end of last year and that task was taken over by two long-time Virgin/Hard Rock executives.

Ultimately, the union and the owners came to terms that, according to the L.A. Times, include a 10% wage increase in the first year, workload reductions, safety protections for workers on the job, worker retraining and/or severance if their jobs are replaced by technology or artificial intelligence, and a few other benefits.