dealers
  [ Enlarge Image ]  
 
 
<< Back 
by: Glenn Haussman.
The year 2007 is going to go down as the year the unions got a foothold among dealers in the casino business. Unionization has been picking up steam with dealers throughout this year.
First it swept through Atlantic City and at Wynn Las Vegas, and now one of the world’s largest casinos is set to unionize. A vote held this past weekend at Foxwoods Resort Casino has ensured the dealers will now have union representation. The votes were 1,289 in favor of union representation while 852 dealers voted down being represented by the UAW.  

“We are disappointed with the preliminary tally, however, these results will not be official until all legal issues, including jurisdiction, are resolved,” said John O’Brien, President, Foxwoods Resort Casino in a statement given to onlinecasinocrawler.com. 

“We continue to believe as we have from the very beginning that the Labor Board lacked jurisdiction and that any election should have been governed by tribal laws. We have made our position clear to the NLRB and will continue to do so in the future,” added O’Brien

Though the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation claimed they did not have to subject themselves to a unionization vote because they wee a sovereign nation, a decision issued last week by the National Labor Relations Board struck down that notion.

"We had been convinced from day one that these workers would get their day in court and get their legal right to cast a ballot," said Bob Madore, director of the UAW's region 9A to the Norwich Bulletin. "We think that within the next month, there will be an election. And we're hoping that the casino won't put any roadblocks in the way in order to get this election conducted."

Though the vote looks like it will hold up in the courts, tribal spokesman Bruce MacDonald is vehemently believes the vote’s results should be discarded.

"We strongly believe that the NLRB does not have jurisdiction as the tribe is the governing body which has the inherent authority to regulate employment on its reservation and it has historically done so," MacDonald said. "The UAW would like people to believe that the tribe is not being fair -- in fact it is the Union that is not being fair....The UAW would prefer to litigate this for years to come in their attempt to undermine Tribal government, instead of respecting what they claim are employee concerns and addressing their issues in the tribal forum."

Meanwhile, further south Atlantic City casino executives have been struggling with the union issue this year as well.  This year several casinos in Atlantic City saw its dealers get union representation including Caesars and Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

At Caesars Atlantic City an overwhelming majority of workers voted in favor of union representation in an election conducted on March 17 by a margin of 572 to 128 to become part of the UAW. And over at Trump Plaza dealers voted in favor of union representation last March voting 324 to 149 to become part of the UAW.

Tom Hickey, a spokesman for Trump Entertainment Resorts, which owns Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Marina as well as Trump Plaza told the AP at the time he doesn’t believe the unions have a true interest in assisting the workers. "The UAW does not provide them with any real solutions to an improved working environment."

In Las Vegas Steve Wynn got himself into hot water with his dealers when he implemented a new tip splitting policy last year and in retaliation the, dealers at Wynn Las Vegas voted by a margin of almost three to one in favor of union representation.

The vote was an astounding 444 to 149 in favor of allowing the New York-based Transport Workers Union of America to unionize the casino.

© Copyright 2007 Gambling Central's material. It may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Variety of card and table games
at Sun Palace Casino

[ Back ]