In the first ever union vote monitored by the federal government at a tribal casino, 3,000 dealers at the massive Foxwoods casino in Connecticut are expected to vote to join the UAW. Foxwoods is owned by the Mashantucket Pequots, who have run a remarkably ham-fisted, blundering campaign trying to block unionization. They’ve placed numerous full page ads in Connecticut newspapers warning of Ominous Problems should the Evil Unions come to Foxwoods. Why, they’ve even promised to listen to what workers want and perhaps even do something about it. But alas, they’ve promised all this before apparently, and that’s why workers plan to unionize now.
Once the dealers unionize, it’s a certainly other groups of workers at Foxwoods will too. The casino has no doubt spent enormous sums to stop the union, I guess no one told them the most time-honored method to block unions (besides sending in the goons as was done in the 30’s) is to treat and pay employees fairly.
Succesful unionization is a rare thing but with manufacturing virtually gone from America, casino workers and those in healthcare are hoping for a chance to discover this benefit.
It’s truly unfortunately that, after years of adversarial labor-management relations wreacking havoc on U.S. competitiveness, management still doesn’t get it: cooperation is good for business. Unions by their very nature discourage efficient production, and one would think business would try to avoid them by maintaining superior employee relations. Yet, as you note, this business made and broke promises in the past, and now it pays the price.
And so do its workers: a less competitive business has less profit to share with its workers and fewer jobs to offer. Sad.
The votes have now been counted and it was a landslide to unionize, no big surprise, really.