The distrust toward new technologies and cost-saving measures could ultimately help spark the Culinary Workers Union’s first citywide strike in almost four decades. Contracts covering 40,000 union members just expired, and a strike vote is scheduled for next week.

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“Companies — not just here in Vegas, but across the country — are capitalizing on the pandemic,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer at the culinary union. “We’re seeing these massive corporations try to eliminate labor and replace it with technology, or simply reduce services and attempt to modify the guests’ behavior to service themselves.”

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While the Culinary Workers Union’s latest contract already included protections such as free retraining when new technologies were introduced, not all hospitality workers in Las Vegas are unionized. More broadly, less than 3% of all leisure and hospitality workers nationwide were union members last year.