Together, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 represent some 60,000 workers in the resort properties of Las Vegas and Reno. When those workers run into obstacles—management conflicts, citizenship battles, economic hardship—they turn to their union, and the union entrusts Bethany Khan with getting their message to its employers and to the public.

The Culinary union’s spokeswoman and director of communications and digital strategy has a staunch and tireless dedication to economic equality and social justice. She has fought for immigration reform, for pay equality, even for democracy itself; she played a key role in the Culinary union’s effort to canvass voters in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm election. She works long days, occasionally forgoing sleep entirely—which, to her, is no hardship at all. “I’m really productive when others are sleeping,” she says.

Weekly near the end of one of those long workdays to talk about why she keeps fighting for Nevada’s workers.Recently, Khan sat down with the

You’re still pretty energized this late in the day. What is it about this work that fires you up? Our union is mostly women of color and immigrants, and I’m a first-generation daughter of immigrants. I love working, and winning, for my community. That’s what’s great about working for Culinary: It’s a very dynamic organization, and we win. You’re fighting every day, whether it be for racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice. … Oftentimes, it’s not a matter of if the union will win, it’s a matter of when.

What’s very satisfying [about this work] is that it changes people’s lives. I can see it in the stories that I have the privilege to hear, and then on the other hand, uplift. I can see the direct impact of unions on workers’ lives. It’s a great place to be.

It sounds like it’s not just whether you win, but sometimes, by how much. A good example is the midterms. We won mostly everything [we wanted], but obviously we didn’t win the governor’s race. [But] we were able to develop 450 workers to become leaders in the political program. And these are shop stewards, the rank-and-file members in the casinos, who just ran, like, nine months of the most intense and sophisticated political campaign in the country. Knocked on a million doors, talked to 175,000 Nevadans, helped to cure over 11,000 Nevadans’ ballots by the end of the cure deadline. And then they went to Georgia, to deliver the seat for [Senator Raphael] Warnock.

It’s incredible to see the leaders that were trained and developed and grew during the campaign who will go on to continue to lead, and hopefully one day be elected to office or become leaders in the union. So, even if we didn’t win every race, we still won most everything. The internal victories are worth it.

But the Culinary union also excels at reaching outward, and that’s you, too. I’m an organizer. That’s what my department does; that’s what I think about every day. How can my talents, how can my digital strategy and my communication strategy, support organizing? … When you’re in a movement, you know it. You’re fighting for justice and equality, for respect and dignity, for workers to have their First Amendment rights respected.

And the fights that we do help the rest of Nevada. We took on Sheldon [Adelson] over the public sidewalks issue in the ’90s, an important battle for our workers. ... It set the precedent for future activists and protesters to have access to public sidewalks on the Strip.

We fought for Nevada Senate Bill 386, Right to Return, because we had a lot of workers who were out of jobs during the pandemic. … Really, it impacted more non-union workers, because a lot of workers didn’t have that type of language in their contract to protect them.

[And] our citizenship project has helped over 18,000 Nevadans to become U.S. citizens, for free, since 2001.

So, how do I bring this message, [that] when workers in this town and our Culinary members do well, you do well? That we will protect democracy, because you’ll have elected officials up and down the ballot who will center your issues and make sure that you have a champion for immigrants, workers, regular people? I think it’s by telling stories—making sure that workers have a voice at the table, and that workers are in the media sharing their stories.

Making people realize that we’re all in the same boat. Everybody, at the end of the day, wants to be treated with respect. And everybody’s had a bad boss or been fired or treated unfairly, or maybe doesn’t have a contract to protect them at work. Everybody has someone that they love who’s in that messy situation, or you yourself have been in that situation. And I always say that all the top executives, here in Vegas and around the country, have a contract that details the specifics of their job. Why shouldn’t you have that as well?

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