Bartenders Local 165

Bartenders Local 165 is the partner union of and shares a pension fund with Culinary Local 226 (also an affiliate of UNITE HERE), another Las Vegas casino workers’ union, that is an integral player in Nevada Democratic politics and was a key part of the political machine associated with former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). ² Bartenders Local 165 is known for its left-of-center political stances, and its website has frequent attacks on the Trump administration for non-labor related issues such as immigration. ³ The website also has a section shaming bartenders at Las Vegas casinos who exercise their rights under Nevada’s right-to-work law not to join or support the union. ⁴

Background

Bartenders Local 165 was founded in 1934 and is currently affiliated with the UNITE HERE international union, which was formed after a 2004 a merger between the Hotel Employees-Restaurant Employees (HERE) union and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). ³ Unite Here is notable for aggressive “corporate campaign” organizing tactics which use smear campaigns against employers to force them to deny workers private votes on unionization. ⁵

Bartenders 165 reported over 4,000 members⁶ and $2.5 Million in assets. There are currently six employees and officers of the union who earn over $100,000 per year. ⁷

Controversies

Bartenders Local 165 is the sister union to Culinary Workers Local 226, which was led by the powerful labor leader Al Bramlet from the 1950s into the 1970s.  The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that during the 1970s, Bramlet allegedly was the “best customer” of a group of contract bomb-planters; a blast damaged a non-union Las Vegas restaurant in 1976. ⁸

Bramlet was murdered in 1977, allegedly over a money dispute with the contract bomb-planters. According to the Review-Journal, this came at a time when the Chicago mob was active in Las Vegas and had members in the parent union of Culinary Workers 226 and Bartenders Local 165. ⁸ After Bramlet’s death, the U.S. Department of Labor alleged that Bramlet had illegally used the pension fund shared by Bartenders and Culinary to give out over $30 million in loans to Morris Shenker, owner of the Las Vegas Dunes Hotel. ⁹

In 2008, a Labor Department compliance audit found that Bartenders Local 165 had engaged in improper financial recordkeeping and disclosure and engaged in the questionable practice of allowing secretary-treasurer Greenwald to sign blank checks which weakened financial compliance procedures prescribed by union bylaws. ¹⁰

In 2018, Bartenders Local 165 settled a National Labor Relations Board charge filed by a Park MGM worker who was fired in apparent violation of Nevada’s right-to-work law for not possessing a “union pour card” which the union agreement required non-members to purchase. The employee was reinstated by her employer with back pay and seniority. ¹¹