Last month, some 60,000 members of the Culinary Workers Union in Nevada, which represents housekeepers, bartenders and servers, voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike—with pay and staffing being major points of contention between the union and employers. Union members picketed hotels owned by MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip last week, although no strike has yet been called.
For Xochitl Mendez, a housekeeper who has worked at an MGM hotel for the past 14 years, cleanliness is a safety issue.
“The rooms aren’t cleaned every day, and every day we see guests who are super, super annoyed. They’re angry and they insult us,” Mendez, 55, told Fortune. “Sometimes we don’t want to go into the rooms because the guests are so mad.”
Once, she said, an angry guest yelled at her and threw magazines when she entered the room, shouting, “Why hasn’t this room been cleaned when I’m paying so much money?”