Throughout Hispanic Heritage Month, the AFL-CIO will be profiling leaders and activists to spotlight the diverse contributions Hispanics and Latinos have made to the labor movement. Today's profile features Claudia Zarate of UNITE HERE's Culinary Union.
In Las Vegas, the Cosmopolitan casino opened as a nonunion workplace in 2011. After a four-year organizing campaign, the UNITE HERE Culinary Union negotiated and won a first union contract in 2015. Claudia Zarate was a Day One committee member at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas when it was nonunion and became a worker leader during the four-year fight to organize it—now part of the 100% unionized Las Vegas Strip.