There may be no more vivid illus­tra­tion of the eco­nom­ic hav­oc being wreaked by the coro­n­avirus than the rapid shut­down of the Las Vegas strip. What was a boom­ing tourist des­ti­na­tion a week ago is now in the process of becom­ing a locked down row of emp­ty build­ings. For the Culi­nary Union, whose 60,000 mem­bers com­prise vir­tu­al­ly the entire Las Vegas casi­no indus­try, this is the equiv­a­lent of a nuclear bomb.

In just the past two days, MGM Resorts, which oper­ates 10 major prop­er­ties on the Strip, has announced that it is clos­ing all of them indef­i­nite­ly; Wynn Resorts has announced it is clos­ing its two prop­er­ties for at least two weeks; and Caesar’s, anoth­er major oper­a­tor, has begun lay­offs. With trav­el grind­ing to a halt and Amer­i­ca hun­ker­ing indoors, it is like­ly only a short mat­ter of time before every casi­no and resort in Las Vegas is emp­ty, a sit­u­a­tion even worse than the after­math of the 2008 finan­cial crisis.

The Culi­nary Union, which just weeks ago was being fet­ed and flat­tered by Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates in town for the Neva­da cau­cus, will now be test­ed by the rapid fur­loughs and lay­offs of what will amount to a large por­tion of their work­ing membership.

In an update sent to mem­bers late last week, the union said that it was hold­ing ​“emer­gency nego­ti­a­tion ses­sions” with all of its employ­ers, seek­ing five paid sick leave days, paid leave for those in quar­an­tine, enhanced clean­ing stan­dards, and leaves of absences on request. Some of those asks will become moot as prop­er­ties shut down. Culi­nary Union spokesper­son Bethany Khan told In These Times that the union has nego­ti­at­ed up to six months of paid health­care ben­e­fits for work­ers who are laid off.

Yes­ter­day, the union told mem­bers that the board of the Culi­nary Health Fund, the union-run health­care provider for more than 125,000 mem­bers and their fam­i­lies, will be extend­ing cov­er­age for those who are laid off or have had their hours cut, and will not impose copays. The Health Fund also told mem­bers that all test­ing for the coro­n­avirus will be cov­ered at no cost (although the Fund’s web­site now promi­nent­ly notes that ​“The Culi­nary Health Cen­ter cur­rent­ly does not have the abil­i­ty to test for the Coro­n­avirus,” and that the emer­gency room is the only place peo­ple can cur­rent­ly be tested.)

Unlike for­mer crises like 9⁄ 11 and the Great Reces­sion, the coro­n­avirus shut­downs are not only eco­nom­ic, but also tinged with the fur­ther uncer­tain­ty of an unfold­ing pan­dem­ic. That means that the shut­downs and lay­offs in Las Vegas could per­sist even after the virus itself comes under con­trol, due to the eco­nom­ic fall­out, or even after eco­nom­ic recov­ery mea­sures have been tak­en, if the virus itself is still rag­ing. There is no way to say when busi­ness might return.

The Culi­nary Union became a union role mod­el by build­ing wall-to-wall pow­er in a one-indus­try town. Now that that indus­try is fac­ing what could become a total tem­po­rary col­lapse, the union’s abil­i­ty to func­tion as a social safe­ty net will be test­ed like nev­er before. Last month, every Demo­c­ra­t­ic politi­cian in Amer­i­ca was com­pet­ing to prove that they sup­port­ed the union and its mem­bers more than any­one else. Now, they will get a chance to prove it.

Even Culi­nary Union mem­bers who have not been laid off are fac­ing their own haz­ards. One union work­er at a prop­er­ty on the Las Vegas strip that is still open told In These Times that they are now caught between the fear of los­ing a job, or los­ing their health. ​“It’s a petri dish.”