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Workers ready to shut down entire Vegas strip

LAS VEGAS—Las Vegas casino owners’ threats to subcontract or automate thousands of workers’ jobs – among other issues — forced the workers, employed by Unite Here Locals 226 and 165, to vote almost unanimously to authorize a strike if bargainers fail to agree on a new pact by June 1.

If 50,000 workers, who toil at 34 big hotels on the Las Vegas strip and downtown, must walk out, it would be the union’s largest strike in decades. The May 23 vote at the Thomas and Mack Center, a basketball arena, drew 25,000 members, who authorized the strike by a 99 percent-1 percent margin.

“We don’t want to go on strike, but we will if we have to,” said union Communications Director Bethany Khan. “The companies are more profitable than ever, because of our hard work, and the workers want to share in that success for their families.”

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