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Nor is it only union members who benefit from the union's work. D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer of Local 226, figures that when you add in the workers at nonunion Vegas hotels that have to match the wage levels at unionized hotels, and the families of all these hotel employees, the total number of people whose living standards have been raised is 175,000 to 180,000 (and that's not counting the merchants and workers at whose stores the hotel employees shop). In a metropolitan area of 1.4 million, that means the union has transformed the entire city.

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The union, then, has not directly transformed working-class Las Vegas outside its own industry. But in its effect on the city as a whole, says Jan Jones, who was mayor from 1991 through 1999 and now handles public affairs for the Harrah's chain, "It's made a remarkable difference." Local 226 "ensured that the employees were earning a living wage, and could buy cars and homes."

In Jones' first year as mayor, Vegas had 15 million visitors annually; when she stepped down eight years later, it had 36 million. Housing construction boomed, and the electorate felt economically secure enough to approve bond measures for parks, libraries and schools -- enabling the city to build a new school every month. Voters also passed a sales-tax increase to double the city's water capacity. "This is what management and labor working together can produce -- a vibrant economy," says Jones.