Workers at Landmark Credit Union Live, the new indoor music venue in Milwaukee’s Deer District, have voted to form a union, organizers announced Wednesday. The effort covers Levy employees who handle hospitality work throughout the building, including cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, servers, attendance bussers, hosts, runners and barbacks. Organizers say the outcome was lopsided in favor of organizing and reflects a wider push among Deer District service workers to lock in better wages and protections, adding a splashy new venue to a growing list of local union wins.
Card Count Confirms Majority
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a card count held in Milwaukee County Board Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson-Bovell's office showed that 81 of 87 Levy employees signed union authorization cards. The tally, which included staff across the venue’s service roles, was presented as proof of majority support. Organizers say that show of backing will be the foundation for seeking formal recognition and starting contract talks.
MASH Will Represent Workers
The workers will be represented by the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization (MASH), the same union that already speaks for Fiserv Forum staff and other Deer District employees. The Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization has led previous rounds of bargaining with Levy and other Deer District employers, securing wage floors and job protections for arena-area workers.
Opened Last Month
Landmark Credit Union Live officially opened in February as a mid-size, 4,500-capacity venue developed by FPC Live in partnership with Live Nation and a local naming-rights sponsor. The venue’s promotional materials highlighted local job creation and year-round programming as key benefits to the Deer District. Landmark Credit Union announced the February opening in a press release.
Why It Matters
Milwaukee’s Deer District has leaned on a community benefits approach that links new development to worker protections, and MASH contracts have been a cornerstone of that setup. The High Road Strategy Center has tracked how those community benefits agreements, followed by union organizing, translated into industry-leading standards like wage floors and cost-of-living adjustments for arena workers. The High Road Strategy Center report lays out that history and what it has meant for labor power in the district.
What Comes Next
A card count is a common organizing tactic to show majority support and can prompt an employer either to voluntarily recognize a union or to push the process toward a formal representation petition and election. Decisions and guidance from the National Labor Relations Board detail how authorization cards are treated as evidence of support and spell out when an employer may legally recognize a union.
Local Labor Momentum
The Landmark Credit Union Live vote comes on the heels of other MASH wins at smaller Milwaukee workplaces and adds fuel to what organizers describe as growing momentum among local service workers. Recent coverage notes that Discourse Coffee workers voted to unionize under MASH, with the company agreeing to recognize the union, and that Anodyne Coffee locations organized earlier, signaling a broader trend of hospitality and food-service employees opting for collective representation. WUWM and Spectrum News have covered those organizing drives.
