Caesars Casino Dealers Approve Union Representation by UAW

On Saturday, approximately 860 games dealers, simulcast and keno personnel voted on whether to let the United Autoworkers represent them.

The vote was forced even though over 60 percent of the affected employees signed union cards. For workers to be represented, 50 percent of the workers plus one must vote in favor of the union.

Company management forced the vote even after finding out that over 50 percent approved union representation.

Caesars has accused the union of threatening employees to vote for unionization. Caesars also will file objections to the National Labor Relations Board and wants another election.

The UAW had felt confident as they succeeded several years ago in gaining bargaining representation at three Detroit casinos.

Early reports are that approximately 80 percent of the voting employees voted for the union. Trump Marina and Hilton gaming employees are also signing cards.

In most cases, the issues have been severely decreased health benefits while the premiums have risen steeply for employees with families. Additionally the casinos have been able to act and terminate employees under the ‘at will’ law allowing the casinos to discharge employees for no reason or at will as they see fit.

Readers' Soapbox

UAW

Submitted by TOM B on Tue, 2007-03-20 19:49.

"A spokeswoman for Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns Caesars, said the casino company will challenge the results and accused the union of threatening employees to vote for unionization"

This has to be the biggest joke I have ever heard. We are a group of 860 people looking to unionize and out of 860 we had 700 people took part in the voting process. That is a staggering voter turnout of greater than 81%. We originally signed union cards to join the UFCW in a very short period of time and after achieving the total number of signatures we decided that we were better off going with the UAW to represent us.

The change meant that we had to go through the process of signing union cards all over again. Through this process the vast majority did so without ever meeting union officials from either union(UAW or UFCW). To this day many have never attended a union meeting or meet with UAW reps. If 860 workers from Caesars AC were being threaten to vote for the UAW than isn't safe to say that we must have been threaten by the UFCW when the great majority of 860 workers signed on with them to represent us originally?

We sought out the UAW for help, they did not approach us with threats. For Caesars to start crying foul by accusing the UAW of threats rather than taking a good hard look in the mirror to realize that after they cut our raises 33%, cut company 401k match 25% as well as switching our provider and selections to a weaker plan, cut the company contribution amount to our healthcare benefits approx. 25% while at the same time substantially raising our contribution amount. Harrah's Entertainment grossly under estimated their employee's resolve and unity by thinking they could cut raises, 401k contributions and healthcare benefits without us fighting back and demanding the same respect as they give the other Union workers who work in the same building as us for the same owner.

Harrah's Entertainment (HET) since taking over Caesars has shown us that the only members of the Caesars family who are not suffering raise and healthcare cutbacks are union members. We were not threatened into voting the UAW in, we were pushed into voting for them by our Senior management team. Three months ago, Dan Nita- GM of Caesars, told all the dealers that we were the only employee's complaining about the new healthcare plan in the organization. Not until last week when the CEO of HET came to Caesars to try and sway our opinion with regards to the union vote did the company finally acknowledge that we were not alone and in fact all the employee's from Harrah's, Showboat, Bally's, Claridge and the Wild Wild West are all voicing the same complaint. Who admitted that they "stubbed their toes" with the insurance plan that they put in place and vowed that they would fix it.

Funny how it took this company with 1 week to go before the election to admit they made a mistake when prior they played us out to be a bunch of selfish people looking for more than they deserved. The company ran separate mandatory meetings between the full time workers and the part time workers just so they could tell the 360 part time workers that 300 of them could expect to get laid off if they voted for the union. The told the poker dealers that they could expect to have their jobs and tips taking from them by the table game dealers if they voted yes for the union.

The hung an election card with an X in the NO box for the union with the phrase "Protect your job, Protect your family"!......(isn't that a threat towards my family if I vote yes?) Harrah's has a history of offering bad benefits, being cheap and laying off mid-level management compared to other casino's. The workers for Caesars have seen what Harrah's is about and has decided that it is better to negotiate UNITED rather than BEG divided. In about a year we will be going through another ownership change and after seeing what the Tropicana is going through one can only wonder what will happen to our Managers who tell us that the company "realizes that they stubbed their toes" and if they ever will be in place for a long term solution for our present day problems.

After seeing over 80% of the employee's turnout to vote it is obvious that we were not threatened to vote by the UAW. History has shown us that when it comes to elections that when the people are threatened they do not show up to vote. The reality is we had a staggering turnout of over 81%, many who came to work that morning even though there was ice on the road, just to vote. Out of the less than 20% of workers who did not participate in the voting process many did so because this was their 2nd job. They felt it was best to let the people who work at Caesars everyday decide rather than have them influence the vote 1 way or the other over the issues they could care less about. They had other full time jobs.

Now after seeing the voter turnout and the landslide victory I firmly believe it's quite clear that the $15 billion giant is crying because they can't have their cake and eat it.