Nev. union support for Sanders shows limits of labor warning

Members of Neva’s most politically powerful labor group were warned by union leers that Bernie Sanders’ plan would doom ir prized health care, but y voted for him anyway. casi workers of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 are powerful eugh in Neva Democratic politics that special caucus sites are set up in Las Vegas Strip casis to accommodate m. In at least four of those seven caucus sites Saturday, workers threw ir support behind Sanders.

results are a warning sign to labor unions that any attempt to influence primary risks being igred, and a harbinger of Sanders' strength with working-class voters, Latis and labor rank and file — all voters that will be critical in California’s delegate-rich primary early next month.

Morena Del Cid, a Culinary Union member and a porter at Bellagio casi-resort, said she voted for Sanders because she thinks “we need a lot of change in this country." She said that she kws Joe Biden h ties to her union’s leers, but she felt Biden and President Barack Obama’s ministration didn’t get eugh done on immigration and gun control after eight years in power.

“We need something different. Somebody different. Somebody strong to put out Donald Trump,” she said.

Culinary, like its parent union Unite Here, officially decided t to endorse, joining a number of national unions making a similar calculation to stay on sidelines of a still-crowded primary and avoid causing dissension among ir ranks.

60,000-member Culinary Union didn’t stay totally neutral, however, sending out leaflets to members in recent weeks that said candidates pushing for a government-run insurance system under “Medicare for All” would force “millions of hard-working people to give up ir healthcare” and create “unnecessary division between workers, and will give us four more years of Trump." One leaflet specifically said Sanders’ would “end Culinary healthcare.”

Angel Lazca, a 46-year-old busperson at Aria and a Culinary Union member, didn’t heed warnings. Lazca cited Medicare for All as one of things that drew him to Sanders.

With Medicare for All, Lazca said, "everybody can choose ir own doctors inste of going through insurance and taking only doctors that use insurance.”

Geoconda Argüello-Kline, Culinary’s leer, pushed back against tion that union’s members failure to heed warnings about Medicare for All is a sign of weakness, arguing that despite leaflets, union wasn’t campaigning against any candidate.

“We want members to have right information, but we kw some members, y agree with that, some members don’t agree with that,” Argüello-Kline said.

Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at University of California Santa Barbara, said that like all or voters, laborers make decisions based on values.

“Unionists are t green eyeshes accountants who say, ‘How is this going to help me?’” he said

One of those values is fighting for all working people, said Mark Dimonstein, president of American Post Workers, which backs Sanders. “Unions are at our best t just for workers we represent but for betterment of working class in general,” he said.

Dimonstein said his members’ federal health benefits are better than many workers’ plans but re is still dissatisfaction as rising premiums keep cutting into workers’ pay checks. “Postal workers would be far better off with Medicare for All,” he said

Jody Domineck, a nurse in Las Vegas and executive board member with a local chapter of Service Employees International Union, said that though many union members enjoy good insurance, it’s something that y have to continually fight for and questioned why employers use as a bargaining chip.

“Even though we do have good benefits, y are threatened continually. And I feel like if we h an overall plan or some or access, that wouldn’t be a tool that could be used against us.

Domineck said she doesn’t kw if Medicare for All is best plan but she’s open to it. She voted for Elizabeth Warren, who also has proposed a Medicare for All plan.

Whoever becomes Democratic minee, including Sanders, Argüello-Kline said Sunday that Culinary Union plans to put 100 percent of its effort behind minee in service of a broer goal — defeating Donald Trump.