Casino approvals a humbling defeat for Labor

6.28.07

Analysis: Lawmakers' approval of casino expansions a humbling defeat for organized labor

By Peter Hecht
Bee Capitol Bureau

Analysis
As state lawmakers Thursday voted to allow four of California's richest casino gambling tribes to add a total of up to 17,000 new slot machines, the vote was a humbling defeat for organized labor.

Before the final vote, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez declared that he had extracted verbal promises that unions could organize workers on tribal lands. But securing the last-minute statements - which have no force of law - was merely a face-saving gesture for many Democratic lawmakers long allied with labor.

The result left Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, fuming. Even before the final vote, Pulaski put out a statement saying Legislature had "abandoned California's 100,000 current and future casino workers who now risk languishing among the working poor."

Unions have long been a muscular power player in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. But this time, labor's intense campaign to force union-friendly provisions on the tribes lost mightily in the face of the tribe's soaring political influence - and financial clout - in the Capitol.

Pacing outside the Capitol, Pulaski said lawmakers had caved in out of fear that "money from those casinos will be spent against them" in election races.

"You have to make a choice between the power of money and the authenticity of the grassroots people," he angrily said. "Because the people always win."

But this time, at least for people who are union activists, the tribes won in a rout. (Complete Story)