Marlene Patrick-Cooper, now president of Unite Here Local 23, returned home to Louisiana after organizing with Unite Here’s affiliate, the Culinary Union, in Las Vegas. Thanks in part to her leadership, labor organizing in New Orleans may soon be as strong as it is in Las Vegas.
Patrick-Cooper learned her craft in the city that is the model for what a unionized New Orleans hospitality industry could one day look like: Las Vegas. She worked for Unite Here’s mighty affiliate, the Culinary Union, which has organized virtually the city’s entire casino industry. That union is the best example in America of successful wall-to-wall organizing to build economic and political power for working-class people in a tourist city. (That power, in fact, can reach across the country. Unite Here used its clout with gaming companies in Vegas to make them agree not to fight organizing efforts at the casinos in New Orleans and Biloxi.)