ARE CASINO DEALERS STARTING A TREND IN UNIONIZING?
The parent company of Caesars Atlantic City has decided not to challenge a vote by workers to form a union, granting casino dealers in Atlantic City their first union in 25 years.
The deadline for the parent company, Harrah’s Entertainment, to challenge the March 17 unionization vote was Monday, according to the company and the United Auto Workers, the multi-industry union that is representing nearly 900 Caesars dealers, keno and simulcast employees.
Now, days after Steve Wynn told his casino’s dealers that he made “a big mistake” by allowing Casino Supervisors to share in their tips, the dealers of the Wynn Las Vegas resort have voted to join a union.
The vote comes after months of debate since Wynn’s tip-sharing mandate was implemented which dealers claim has resulted in a 15 to 20 percent cut into their tip income.
A strong majority of workers at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino voted in favor of union representation. In an election conducted on Sat., March 31, full-time and regular part-time dealers, as well as dual-rate dealers and dual-rate supervisors voted 324 to 149 to become part of the UAW.
The UAW has represented dealers, cage cashiers and slot technicians at Detroit’s three casinos since 1999.
Dealers at Bally’s Casino are scheduled to vote on June 2.
In 2001, elections were held up and down the Strip, and the Transport Workers Union only prevailed at three, lower-end properties: the Tropicana Resort & Casino, the New Frontier Hotel & Casino and the Stratosphere Casino Hotel & Tower. Only at the New Frontier was a contract successfully negotiated.
In late 2001, the Teamsters Union contemplated making a run where the TWU had failed. It was blocked by a handshake agreement between union presidents James P. Hoffa and Sonny Hall.
“I’ve seen the UAW stick its nose in, but never anything serious,” said dealer advocate Knight Allen. “I suppose there’s a lot of frustration going on.”
“I’m just not going to comment on that,” said UAW spokesman Roger Kerson, when asked why his union was organizing dealers in Atlantic City — with considerable success — but not Las Vegas.
While the TWU retained dibs on organizing Vegas casino dealers, until Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn’s controversial tip-reallocation program it seemed there was little provocation upon which it could seize.
There is also the recurring question of why the Culinary Union, Local 226, takes a hands-off attitude toward Vegas dealers. Conventional wisdom of long standing holds that is the quid pro quo whereby the Culinary is allowed to organize workers at almost every major Strip property.
Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, theorizes that casino bosses wanted “to be able to control the dealers because (dealers) could swing a game. That’s less of a concern for the house than waitressing and bartending.”
“The casinos want to be sure they can fire a dealer for cheating,” adds Green’s University of Nevada, Las Vegas colleague, Eugene Moehring. “They don’t want to have a contract slowing them up.”
“They didn’t want that hassle,” agreed Dummy Up and Deal author Lee Barnes. “Obviously, if you have a union you have to justify the firing.”
FLYING CHIPS, BOUNCING DEALERS
Green says his father, a dealer of 30 years’ experience, “saw one case of a guy who a floorman slapped on the back and chips flew out. Turned out he had them hidden in his mouth.
“Also, there was more of a tendency on the part of dealers to move from place to place than there was in the people the Culinary organized,” he added. “That meant the Culinary people were easier to keep together, with dealers bouncing from place to place.”
Green cites a third factor, the vast difference between the tips that can be had from waitressing and those that might come from a ‘george’ player at the craps table. “That makes it harder to say to a dealer, ‘Why don’t you pay union dues?’ Would the guy at Bellagio take care of the guy at Poker Palace? All of those factors combined to make the Culinary wary.” He also thinks casino owners laid down the law to onetime Culinary Union chief Al Bramlet (slain in 1977 by two flunkies). “I would bet on that.”
The casinos did more than just send verbal warnings, recollects Barnes. They “hired Griffin Investigation to take pictures of all these people, believe it or not. Everybody that was trying to organize … they were kind of blackballed.”
Barnes, who characterizes Wynn’s tip policy as “stealing,” lays some blame upon the historical tendencies of dealers themselves. A former dealer himself, Barnes said, “it’s very, very difficult to get dealers to agree on anything. They are a very mistrusting lot. So whenever anyone tries to organize them they’re skeptical.”
“As the son of a dealer,” Green concurred, “I can say they are a group of contrarians.”
DEAL OR NO DEAL?
Management has long been able to leverage the tip issue to its advantage, says Barnes. “In the early Sixties, bartenders and dealers made the same wage,” he recalled. However, by 1985, dealers were making three times that amount, thanks to tip income. That enabled casino owners to keep dealer salaries low and “they wouldn’t have to bargain (with dealers) for benefits … until this Wynn thing came along, they kept their nose out of dealers’ tips.”
Dealers could not live on their minimum-wage salary alone, notes I. Nelson Rose, of Whittier Law School, so casino owners already draw an indirect benefit from tips. As for pit bosses and boxmen, who Wynn has cut in for a share of tip pools, “the pit bosses are not simply employees,” Rose opined. “They’re quasi-managers
BE CAREFULL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Here at Larry’s Las Vegas we are pondering this thought. What happens when Casinos implement a “No Tip” policy? What kind of salary agreement would a Nevada Court appointed mediator decree fair for a Casino Dealer?
We think it might be a lot less than the $80,000 to $100,000 currently earned by dealers at the High End” casinos. A more likely scenario will be these “Prima Donna” dealers earning the same as the majority of dealers in the country, barely $40,000. Sure there are dealers at Indian Casinos bringing in the big bucks, but who knows maybe, one day they might want a union too.
BE CAREFULL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
EVERYBODYS COMING TO ‘VEGAS! WHY NOT YOU?
Sources: http://www.lvbusinesspress.com/articles/2007/05/11/news/iq_14252983.txt
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dealers-trump-plaza-hotel-casino/story.aspx?guid=%7BEF1BFB7B-AFA5-47F0-871E-0F64174A2E4A%7D
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