Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

The Las Vegas Sun is reporting on a workers strike at City Center, MGM Mirage's large development on the Las Vegas Strip.

Due to a rash of construction deaths, the workers are demanding increased safety provisions be made before work will start again.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jun/03/workers-walk-citycenter-site-protest/

Update: It's possible that work will re-start again soon - it appears Perini and the trades had a positive meeting.



Comments

Read archived comments (9 so far)
June 3, 2008 9:18 AM Posted by mike_ch

Read the article, but every time you see the word "safety," replace it in your head with "money."

'It�s time to stop talking about worker money and time to start putting into place policies that are going to improve worker money on this job site.'

Yep.

June 3, 2008 10:06 AM Posted by Mike T

Rip them all you want Mike, but from the workers' perspective, if six of my coworkers had died where I worked, then I wouldn't be too amped about showing up to work either.

June 3, 2008 10:56 AM Posted by Brian Fey

Yeah, this is just really crazy. I heard of one death at Encore, but as it was never published I somewhat doubt the rumor. This is unacceptable in my book. If City Center, needs to slow down, and open a few months later, so people don't have to die rushing, then so be it. This is insane.

June 3, 2008 3:53 PM Posted by steve_c

Who cares about ARIA these days anyway? (sarcasm)

Our economy is crap, and this does not do a darned thing to help it.

This was a "sanctioned" strike, which means, these construction workers cannot ever be "scabs" to support their families.

Safety conditions need to improve, and maybe they should slow down.

Let's hope this gets resolved A.S.A.P.

June 3, 2008 5:47 PM Posted by detroit1051

AP reports the strike is over:
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=8420473

June 3, 2008 8:14 PM Posted by mike_ch

Mike T, I understand what you're saying, but two people died in the construction of Luxor, and at least three died in the construction of Venetian which was also met with heavy criticism for it's standards.

Those are all sites with just one building. CityCenter has six main buildings, and all the infrastructure adds even more challenges. While fatalities are always unfortunate, when you adjust for scale you see it is about par for Strip projects.

June 4, 2008 11:42 AM Posted by Mike P.

I'm back at Bellagio this week -

Construction at both Cosmo and CityCenter was shut down Tuesday. Pickets disappeared late Tues. afternoon and everything is back to normal today.

June 5, 2008 12:16 PM Posted by dr. b

I wonder if this is the type of thing that's accounted for in the design and construction phase? from what mike_ch is saying, it doesn't sound completely unreasonable that they would expect a fatality or two on a project of this size?

June 5, 2008 1:23 PM Posted by Hunter

There's no doubt that this does happen on large projects - I don't know if I would say 'factored in', since that sounds strange when combined with loss of human life, but certainly not unexpected.

City Center's not only had quite a few now but there have been countless reports of safety standard violations - are they moving too fast to hit their opening date?

The Sun's series on construction deaths is here:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/topics/construction-deaths/