Labor Gambles on Winning Over Indian Casino Workers

PALM SPRINGS —  Labor organizer Reggie Turner earned his battle stripes in the casinos of Las Vegas, an old union town. Now he’s been dispatched to a new front where unions have no history and where his marching orders are more daunting.

Turner is at the forefront of efforts to organize workers employed by California’s Indian casinos, and he is decidedly unwelcome on most reservations.

Rank-and-file casino workers deserve better wages, benefits, protection and dignity, he says, and the Indian tribes that operate the casinos respond that their employees are treated well.

This, however, is not your run-of-the-mill management-versus-labor face-off, because the sovereign tribes are exempt from state and federal labor laws that allow workers in other industries to freely organize.

Similar to efforts to formally organize California farm workers 25 years ago, unions today have no force of law to back their campaigns to collectively bargain on behalf of Indian casino workers.

To help their cause, the unions have turned to state politicians for support, much to the tribes’ consternation.

Last year, then-Gov. Pete Wilson became an unlikely political bedfellow with a union in an unsuccessful campaign to defeat Proposition 5, the tribes’ ballot measure to expand Indian gaming in California.

Wilson had already crafted his own, more rigid casino agreements with a handful of smaller tribes. Then, to win the support of the Legislature’s Democrats, he included terms allowing casino workers to join unions--a provision that was not included in Proposition 5. But those compacts were voided after another tribe sought a referendum challenging them.

Now the issue of unionizing casinos falls in the lap of Gov. Gray Davis, who is friendly with Indians and labor, and received campaign contributions from both.

Compact negotiations between Davis’ office and 70 tribes are underway, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll pressure tribes to allow workers to freely organize.

The fate of Proposition 5 remains uncertain because its constitutionality was challenged by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) International Union--Turner’s group--which in recent years has organized tens of thousands of casino workers in Las Vegas.

The state Supreme Court today will hear oral arguments on the case from union and tribal attorneys.

Labor officials and Indian leaders say they know of no Indian casino in the nation whose workers have union representation.

What’s at stake for HERE is the potential for thousands of new members--not only in California but, ultimately, at Indian casinos across the country, which make up the fastest growing sector of the gambling industry. What’s at stake for the Indian tribes is their sovereign right to treat employees by their own terms.

The weight of the union’s challenge is not lost on Turner.

“I tell the other organizers that if they see this just as a job, they’re not going to last,” said Turner, 33, who worked for the union in Las Vegas for nine years before blowing into Palm Springs. “This isn’t a job. This is a movement.

“We’re making history here.”

About two-dozen labor organizers, brought in from around the country, are gathered in El Cajon, planning to “blitz” the homes of Barona Indian casino workers.

They start their morning briefing with a prayer, then ritualistic hand clapping to build up steam for the day’s recruiting efforts. They discuss how to approach unsuspecting workers with hot-button workplace issues.

The group then heads off in cars for workers’ homes. But one group--including union organizers from Chicago and New York and a Barona casino worker--finds no one home at the first four homes. They are frustrated.

Later, Turner and one of his young charges, fresh out of college, visit the Sycuan Indian casino near El Cajon to chat with workers.

The neophyte organizer is so nervous while making small-talk with one employee that he retreats back to Turner before he even broaches the subject of unions.

On the other hand, Turner, a seasoned pro, easily makes conversation with a handful of employees, and leaves his business card with them. He approaches another employee in a restroom, elicits his home phone and address, and promises to visit him at his home where they can talk more freely.

For the hotel and restaurant employees union--the largest representative of rank-and-file casino workers in Las Vegas and Atlantic City--California’s Indian casinos are its largest new target.

There are tactical reasons why the two sides would make good allies, said Clete Daniel, professor of American labor history at Cornell University. They share roots in the Democratic Party, and the tribes would benefit from the union’s lobbying prowess in Washington, especially at a time when the future of gambling is undergoing congressional scrutiny.

Tribal leaders are reluctant to discuss the issue, partly because they are in the midst of casino negotiations with the state.

“Tribal governments have the ability to create labor policies, labor laws, on sovereign lands that are not inconsistent with state and federal laws,” said Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga Indians near Temecula and spokesman for the largest group of tribes negotiating casino compacts.

Macarro said he would not specifically discuss whether casino workers should have the right to select a union. “We’re stepping out into the new world, and there’s a whole slate of economic issues that are new to us,” he said. “There are philosophical thresholds that need to be crossed.”

That philosophical debate extends into the Legislature as well.

“The Indians are fighting for the rights of Native Americans to live with some degree of dignity and respect, and to have some economic stability,” said Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), himself a former general manager of a Service Employees International Union local. “That noble concept should not preclude those same rights for the working men and women who work for them. The basic vehicle to do that is access to a trade union. “

Assemblyman Jim Battin (R-La Quinta), whose desert district includes four Indian casinos, disagrees. “If the unions are invited to go in and organize, that’s fine, but if the tribes don’t want them in, that’s their right,” he said. ‘

At least two tribes have told some of their employees they can chose to be represented by the Communication Workers of America, but have not allowed them to shop for another union. Casino workers grumble that they have yet to collectively bargain through the union, and a spokesman for the CWA did not return phone calls.

In Indio, the Cabazon Indians say they have decided not to engage in a union fight. The tribe will allow all its employees to join any union they want next year, said Mark Nichols, the tribe’s administrator.

“The political reality of finding reconciliation with an important group, such as labor, ought to be of interest to tribes for long-term relations,” Nichols said.

Tribes’ hesitancy in embracing unions, he said, stems from “a history of overbearing and controlling government. We have an asset we can control, and we don’t want to be margined out by another group that may come in and exercise a lot of authority and power over the reservation.”

Many tribal leaders believe the union opposed Proposition 5 on behalf of unionized casinos in Las Vegas that may feel threatened by Indian gaming in California.

HERE President John Wilhelm, who in 13 years helped increase union membership in Las Vegas to 50,000 from 18,000, acknowledges: “We work cooperatively with our employers. Part of our philosophy is, if any employer is willing to accept worker rights and good contracts, then it’s in the interest of our members for that employer to be successful.”

But Las Vegas’s corporate casinos notwithstanding, Wilhelm said his union wants to be as strong an advocate for Indian casinos at a time when they needs as many well-placed friends as they can get.

“There’s an opportunity for a powerful and important partnership between the tribes and the labor movement,” he said.

Wilhelm likens the casino struggle to that of farm workers before adoption of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 under then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

Before that, “there was no legal framework for the exercise of rights of agricultural workers in California, just as today there’s no legal framework for the exercise of employees’ rights in tribal casinos,” Wilhelm said.

Unlike with the farm workers’ epic struggle, there isn’t a passionate, wholesale movement afoot among casino workers to organize. That’s what union representatives like Turner hope to generate.

They say they’ve received a rude reception along the way.

Turner said when he was trying to meet workers in the parking lot of the San Manuel Indian casino near San Bernardino, he was physically assaulted, handcuffed and then sprayed with pepper by tribal security officers. A tribal spokesman said Turner was trespassing in an off-limits area where armored vehicles pick up money, but declined further comment.

At the Barona Casino in San Diego County, a memo instructs employees to report to the local sheriff’s department any contact with union organizers who, the casino said, are “being investigated [by the sheriff’s department] . . . for off-site harassment of Barona employees.” A sheriff’s spokesman said the casino complained about the union organizer, but no report was taken.

At a handful of union meetings in San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties, casino employees offered a litany of workplace complaints: arbitrary pay cuts, no extra pay for holiday work, no paid sick days, sexual harassment, being forced to work while injured and no satisfactory grievance procedures.

But working conditions vary from casino to casino, and many workers say they have no complaints, enjoy the flexibility of hours and the tips they make and have no use for a union.

“I’ve never been treated better,” said a coffee shop waiter at the Morongo Indian casino outside Palm Springs.

Turner says he’s not discouraged by such responses. “There’s no guarantee,” he said, “that what they’re getting now, they’ll always be able to get. Where will they be five years from now? They need to protect their futures.”

It’s exhausting to Turner, carrying that message. To unwind, he says, he drives back to Las Vegas on weekends.

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Casino Labor by the Numbers

Indian Gaming Nationwide

* Number of federally recognized Indian tribes: 557

* Tribes with casinos: 185, in 28 states including California.

* Total Indian casino revenue: $6 billion (1997)

* Indian casino employees: 46,100 (1997)

In California

* Number of federally recognized Indian tribes: 104

* Tribes with casinos: 41

* Total Indian casino revenue: $1.36 billion (1997)

* Indian casino employees: 14,600 (1997)

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union

* Total number of members: 275,000

* Members employed at non-Indian casinos, racetracks and other gambling facilities nationwide: 100,000.

* Members employed at Indian casinos nationwide: 0

* Members in Las Vegas: 50,000

* Members in California: 70,000 (mostly at hotels, racetracks and card clubs)

* Number of labor organizers in California: Won’t disclose

Sources: The National Indian Gaming Assn., the California Nations Indian Gaming Assn., Californians for Indian Self-Reliance, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union