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Despite the
setback, union director Joseph Carbon said the
defeat will not slow the momentum the union
built up after last year's successful organizing
efforts at a pair of Strip properties. "We're
here to stay," Carbon said. "It's a battle, it's
a fight. Maybe we've lost this battle, but it's
a long-term process. We've been in elections
we've lost before." Last weekend, nearly 60
percent of the Rio's dealers rejected the
union's third attempt in 14 months to organize
dealers at a Las Vegas casino. |
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The union
found success at the Wynn Las Vegas following
the resort's 2006 decision to add certain
front-line supervisors to the tip pool with the
dealers. While the
union used the tip issue to organize Caesars
Palace, dealers at that Strip resort also
thought the union would provide a better channel
to discuss their labor concerns, which include
pay, job security and benefits, with management.
Rio dealers expressed many of the same concerns,
including tip protection, but the union was
unable to find the same traction with
the off-Strip resort's
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dealers.
Daniel
Cornfield, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt
University, said the "protecting the tips"
slogan that carried the earlier elections may
need to be changed. "(The union will) have to
find issues beyond that," said Cornfield, who
focuses on labor trends. "What they will need to
look at is from an employment-issue perspective
and a tactical perspective."
Cornfield believes the union was helped at Wynn
Las Vegas because the property is run by "a very
maverick type of unilateral management that is
imposing a restructure that is threatening the
livelihood of the dealer." However, Cornfield
said you can't assume conditions at one property
will be present at another.
"You can't assume uniformity of employment
conditions across properties in Vegas," he said,
pointing to wage and benefit discrepancies, as
well as workplace cultural differences. Rio
President Marilyn Winn believes the resort's
assurances to its workers that "dealers' tokes
belong to the dealers" helped with the vote
decision.
"We made that point clear," Winn said. "When
they started hearing what it was they were going
to get (from the union), which was very little,
and they would likely have to pay union dues to
get it, they voted no." Caesars Palace and the
Rio are owned and operated by Harrah's
Entertainment, which also owns six other casinos
on the Strip. "The (dealers union) had nothing
to offer us," said Sue Duca, a Rio dealer.
Duca, who was an observer for the Rio during the
vote count, said she was surprised by the number
of dealers that sided with management. However,
she suspects many dealers said 'yes' publicly to
union supporters before the vote just to be left
alone. "I'm delighted at the outcome, that it
was so strong," she said "It really voiced our
opinion as to how we felt."
Bill Dukes, another long-time Rio dealer and
vote-count observer, said dealers believed
management's promise that it wouldn't
restructure its tip-pooling policy to follow the
Wynn Las Vegas. Dealers at other properties
around town are being offered similar pledges,
which could present new challenges to organizing
other casino floors.
"The general feeling I've seen talking to people
around town and with my fellow employees is that
Steve Wynn is pretty much on an island here,"
Dukes said. "This is a very bad decision that
he's made and his people are going to have to
live with it. But I don't think it is going to
spread any further than the Wynn."
Greg Kamer, an attorney for Wynn Las Vegas,
said: "Rio management did an excellent job
communicating the serious pitfalls of collective
bargaining in a casino environment." Kamer
defended the tip-pooling policy in district
court and state Supreme Court, where a decision
on the legality of the new policy is still
pending.
"(The union defeat) is an indication that these
dealers realize they have a better relationship
with their company without union involvement,"
Kamer said. Cornfield said union officials need
to do two things following the defeat:
•Get a better understanding of the workers'
needs.
•Get a better understanding of the casino
companies' organizational weaknesses.
"That is to identify certain weaknesses and
points of market embarrassment within the
corporation so they can more effectively humble
the organization in the organizing drive," he
said. David G. Schwartz, director of the Center
for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas, said unionizing dealers has always
been a hard sell in the casino industry.
The Transport Workers Union of America, of which
Las Vegas Dealers Local 721 is a division, last
tried to organize dealers at 11 casinos in 2001
but was largely unsuccessful. Dealers at the
Tropicana, Stratosphere and the New Frontier
approved union representation, although the only
contract that was ever signed covered just 105
dealers at the New Frontier.
"It does appear that dealer unionization in Las
Vegas hasn't developed any kind of momentum,"
Schwartz said in an e-mail. "There could be many
explanations -- the culture of dealing, the
nature of the job, or an inability to
communicate how a union would be preferable for
dealers."
The Rio held a celebration this weekend to show
appreciation to the dealers who voted against a
union and to try to bring union supporters back
into the fold. "Our goal is not to have a
division of the staff," Winn said. "That gets
you no place." Carbon didn't rule out another
run by the union at the Rio.
"There's always that opportunity that we have
another chance," Carbon said. "If that's what
they want to do, there's still a big following
with 162 votes. We'll look at it."
Contact reporter Arnold M. Knightly at
aknightly@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. |
