In case you've wondered whether Columbia Sussex's endgame in its interminably protracted — and often preposterous — negotiations with the Culinary Union was to provoke a strike at the Tropicana Las Vegas, the company's actions elsewhere leave little doubt. (I have it on good authority that ColSux had drawn up plans to drive the Culinary out, in the great Margaret Elardi/Paul Lowden tradition.)
Now those anti-union chickens have come home to roost. The 13,000-member Alaska chapter of the National Education Association has ripped up its contract with ColSux's Anchorage Hilton and calling for boycotts of all 71 ColSux-owned hotels. That'd include …
… Las Vegas' own Westin Casuarina.
What a stroke of luck. At a time when Strip hotels are mostly just muddling through in terms of occupancy and convention bookings, William J. Yung III goes and pisses off one of the U.S.'s leading unions. Less bidness for him — and more for everybody else!
Thanks, Bill. Keep up the good work. We could use non-casino hoteliers with your infallible reverse-Midas Touch. Would you alienate a few other major convention-holding bodies (especially ones who might like to convene in Vegas) while you're at it? It would really help your competitors speed up this economic-recovery thing.
