(LAS VEGAS, NEVADA) - Sylvia Antuna is worried.  The Cook has worked at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for 18 years, but after some fellow Cooks showed her a video of a restaurant in China that uses robots, she’s become concerned her job won’t be around much longer.  “I said, ‘Oh my God, who would ever think we’d be replaced by robots?,’” she told The Huffington Post. “The robots ‘had actual hands making the food and they actually had robot people taking the food to the tables.’” 

Although Antuna may not have been replaced by a robot - yet - she is well aware of the ways in which technology has already replaced Workers in the Las Vegas Hospitality Industry.

The hotel where she works has laid off more than a dozen Prep Cooks in recent years.  Instead, it has bought pre-cut fruit and vegetables from a company that relies heavily on machines.  And several Las Vegas restaurants have begun replacing Servers with iPads that take customers’ orders. 

Around 10 million U.S. jobs - especially service jobs such as Cooks, Cleaners and Janitors - are at high risk of automation within the next five to 10 years alone, according to an October 2017 analysis.  These are jobs that have traditionally benefitted from strong Union support and while Unions are stepping up to address this challenge, in some places this is becoming an increasingly difficult task, especially in light of declining Membership and influence. 

But workplace experts say Unions need to figure out how to help workplaces and Workers adapt to new technologies to reduce layoffs if Workers are to have hope of surviving and even thriving in the face of this threat.

This is the aim of Antuna’s Labor Union - Culinary Workers Union Local 226, by far the biggest and most powerful in Las Vegas.  

For the first time ever, the Union - which represents 50,000 Cooks, Servers, Housekeepers and other Workers at 34 casino-hotels in the city, is making automation a big part of current negotiations for a new contract.

That’s beyond the typical issues it bargains over, like raises, vacations, health coverage and pensions. 

The Union is pushing for the hotels to train Employees to oversee or work alongside robots rather than be replaced by them.

Unsure how soon robots will arrive and what form they will take, Culinary Union Officials say they want to explore with hotel management what the most useful forms of training would be.

“Technology for us ‘is a very serious issue in these negotiations,’” said Geoconda Arguello-Kline, the Culinary Union’s Secretary-Treasurer. “We ‘realize we cannot stop technology, but we have to figure out how to make the companies understand that it can be more of an opportunity for Workers - and not so much mean the elimination of jobs.’”

Arguello-Kline says automation can help Workers.

Robots, for example, could assist Housekeepers by pushing their 300-pound carts loaded with towels and sheets down the hallway - but she also warns the casino-hotels that a headlong rush to embrace robots could backfire.

“Human contact ‘is something people really like about Las Vegas,’” she said. “It’s ‘not the same thing to receive a drink from a robotic machine as receiving it from a cocktail waitress.’” 

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-workers-jobs-inequality-union-automation_us_5ae043f9e4b061c0bfa32e0c