Opinion: Gaming tribes are rolling in money

Monday, February 4, 2008  

"As Super Tuesday looms, mail boxes across California have been stuffed with slick fliers, plus a thick Voter Information Guide, about Propositions 94-97, which ask voters whether or not they approve new gaming compacts that would triple the slot machines—by 17,000—at the casinos of four Southern California tribes. I can imagine the head-scratching over the claims and counterclaims: Is so much gambling capacity healthy for the state? How big a tax windfall? How adequate the accounting safeguards? What kind of impact on poorer tribes? On the environment? Then my eye spied a paragraph by the legislative analyst about labor relations at the casinos. And on that, fellow citizens, I can shed some light.

The legislative analyst is talking about collective bargaining. She tells us that casino workers have a right to union representation, under ground rules that encourage the flow of information but prohibit intimidation, and that let them decide by secret ballot. Then the zinger: “No union currently represents the [fill in any name you want] tribe’s casino employees.” Why, if they can have it, wouldn’t casino workers want union representation? All they have to do is look across the desert to unionized Las Vegas, where working people just like themselves are earning good wages, getting full benefits, buying homes, and entering the middle class. Are they blind? No, they’re afraid.

The gaming tribes are simply rolling in money, and they are not shy about throwing it around politically. If you’re curious about why they got their way in these compacts, look no further. Everybody—the casino execs, the high-priced consultants, the politicians, the state’s General Fund—is feeding at the trough, everybody except the mostly minority workers who clean the toilets and empty the tills lack even the most basic protections because the tribal lands are beyond the reach of California’s anti-discrimination, workers’ compensation, minimum wage, and health and safety laws.

Yes, low-wage workers will be lining up for those casino jobs. But California shouldn’t want low-wage workers. It should want workers who are lifting their families out of poverty, buying homes, and becoming active citizens, like the union chamber maids, baristas, and food servers who participated joyously in Nevada’s recent Democratic caucuses. Californians can make that happen. All they have to do is vote No and send the 17,000 slots back to the negotiating table."

Get the Story:
David Brody: Don’t Forget the Casino Workers (The Berkeley Daily Planet 2/1)