The Trump workers voting against the boss

Donie O'Sullivan
By Donie O'Sullivan and Tiara Chiaramonte, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 10:44 AM EDT, Wed November 2, 2016
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Meet the Trump workers not voting for their boss
01:25 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

Some workers at Trump's Vegas hotel are speaking out against the businessman

Workers at Vegas hotel voted to unionize late last year

Las Vegas CNN  — 

Celia Vargas fled civil war-torn El Salvador and crossed the Mexican border into the United States in the back of a truck in 1981.

For years she lived in the country illegally, before President Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law in 1986 that gave Vargas and millions more like her amnesty.

Today, she works for Donald Trump at his hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. But she’s not voting for him.

Trump’s immigration proposals and his rhetoric on undocumented people upsets Vargas. Many of the people he derides clean his hotel rooms, she says, gesturing towards herself.

“I will vote for Ms. Hillary Clinton, and my family, too,” says Vargas, who was 23 when she came to the United States illegally. “She fights for keeping families together, she fights for the younger people, for Dreamers.”

Carmen Llarul's daughter served in the Navy and her granddaughter is on her first deployment with the Airforce in Japan. Pointing to her hands she says, "these hands clean the rooms every single day for Mr Trump so he can be rich."
Carmen Llarul's daughter served in the Navy and her granddaughter is on her first deployment with the Airforce in Japan. Pointing to her hands she says, "these hands clean the rooms every single day for Mr Trump so he can be rich."
CNN/Tiara Chiaramonte
Jeffrey Wise, a registered Republican, who has worked in Vegas for 30 years, says he will be voting Democrat this election. Wise works two jobs, one as a food server at the Trump hotel, and in a similar role in a hotel with union negotiated contracts elsewhere on the strip. He says his other job pays $3 more per hour and includes benefits he doesn't receive at the Trump property.
Jeffrey Wise, a registered Republican, who has worked in Vegas for 30 years, says he will be voting Democrat this election. Wise works two jobs, one as a food server at the Trump hotel, and in a similar role in a hotel with union negotiated contracts elsewhere on the strip. He says his other job pays $3 more per hour and includes benefits he doesn't receive at the Trump property.
CNN/Tiara Chiaramonte
Celia Vargas was smuggled across the border in the back of a truck in the early 1980s fleeing El Salvador's civil war. Today, she works at Trump's Vegas hotel
Celia Vargas was smuggled across the border in the back of a truck in the early 1980s fleeing El Salvador's civil war. Today, she works at Trump's Vegas hotel
CNN/Tiara Chiaramonte
Elizabeth Moges immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia five years ago. She works as a guest room assistant at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. "America is an immigrant country, we don't need a wall," she says. As a permanent resident she does not have a vote, but if she did she would vote for Hillary Clinton, she says.
Elizabeth Moges immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia five years ago. She works as a guest room assistant at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. "America is an immigrant country, we don't need a wall," she says. As a permanent resident she does not have a vote, but if she did she would vote for Hillary Clinton, she says.
CNN/Tiara Chiaramonte
The Trump workers voting against the boss

Workers want change at Trump Vegas

Vargas, a guest room attendant, is one of more than 200 workers at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas that voted late last year to unionize. Trump owns the hotel with Phil Ruffin.

Appeals by the hotel to the National Labor Relations Board contesting the certification of the union failed, but the hotel has yet to meet union representatives to negotiate.

Speaking at the Republican National Convention in July, Ruffin said Trump’s “handshake is better than any contract you will ever write.”

Jeffrey Wise, who has worked in Vegas for 30 years, is among the workers calling on Trump and Ruffin to come to the negotiating table.

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Donie O'Sullivan/CNN

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Wise works two jobs, one as a food server at the Trump hotel, and another similar role at a hotel with union negotiated contracts elsewhere on the strip. He says his other job pays $3 more per hour and includes benefits he doesn’t receive at the Trump property.

“We hear the phrase often and again and again about let’s ‘Make America Great Again,’ let’s make America what it was supposed to be,” Wise tells CNN, “if you want to start making America great, start from the bottom with the workers.”

Neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas were immediately able to comment, but when asked last month by the Las Vegas Sun on unionization at the hotel, Donald Trump Jr., citing his father’s history of construction projects in New York said, “I don’t think anyone in the history of politics has done more with union labor than Donald Trump.”

Trump Jr. said he was not aware of any plans for negotiations to commence but said: “If you look at our history you’d see a history and decades of negotiation. So we’ll see what happens. Everything is a case-by-case basis.”

Taking on the boss

The Culinary Workers Union represents more than 50,000 workers in Nevada, and the Trump hotel is one of the very few on the Las Vegas Strip that does not have union-negotiated contracts for its workers. Just last month the union launched a campaign calling on supporters to boycott all Trump businesses, a bid to bring hotel management to the negotiating table.

The Trump International is one of the few hotels on the Strip that does not have union contracts.
The Trump International is one of the few hotels on the Strip that does not have union contracts.
Culinary Workers Union/Google Earth

Vargas, Wise, and others are not afraid to take on their boss.

Meeting at the union’s headquarters, in a quieter part of town two miles off the Vegas Strip, they’re still within view of the 64-story hotel with the trademark Trump name emblazoned across its top.

“That’s what the basis of being an American is all about, it’s the right to speak up when you see something unjust and not done fairly and do something about it,” Wise says of his campaign.

Voting the other way

Carmen Llarul, like Vargas, is another Trump worker who isn’t voting for the Republican candidate; instead she says she’ll cast her ballot for Clinton.

Llarul came to the US from Argentina in the early 1980s. She proudly shows a text message on her phone from her granddaughter Olivia, 20, who is on her first deployment with the US Air Force in Japan.

Carmen’s daughter also served in the armed forces and says Trump doesn’t appreciate how much immigrants and their families contribute to American society.

“These hands clean the rooms every single day for Mr. Trump so he can be rich,” she says pointing to her hands. “He should listen to us, the immigrants, the workers, because we have a lot to teach him.”