“Virgin has said from the get-go, ‘No raises at all for the first three years,'” Pappageorge said during a Thursday morning picket outside the property on Harmon. “We’re willing to work
with them to some extent, but at the end of the day, workers are going to have to see raises.”

Though on-the-job security and protections from human workers being replaced by technology and machine learning remain part of the negotiation priorities, raises are apparently the sticking point in talks that have been ongoing since the fall of 2023.

By February, all other Strip and Downtown Las Vegas properties had agreed to a new contract, and several independent hotel workers were seeing hourly raises of around $9 to $10.

“We haven’t made any progress with this company—just zero,” Pappageorge said. We’re trying to give them time, but time’s running out.”