Other tribal casinos are watching with interest the major effort to unionize Sycuan Resort & Casino in San Diego County, as well as the casino’s strenuous efforts to resist it.
The campaign to unionize had been well underway when the Covid pandemic struck, sidetracking the effort. However, though slowed, it never went away entirely. Now, with the pandemic receding, the casino has hired a top consulting firm to persuade workers that unionization is not in their best interests.
In 2019 Sycuan finished a $260 million renovation and some employees began organizing a union.
Normally it’s easy to form a union in California, but tribal organizations are different. Most Golden State tribes operate under the Tribal Labor Relations Ordinance (TLRO) because they are sovereign. Sycuan’s tribal state gaming compact, last updated in 2015 lays out a process for some casino workers to engage in collective bargaining. Notably excluded are dealers, security, gaming commission staffers and cash counters.
TLRO requires that the tribe work with the union once employees vote to organize. That allows the tribe to campaign to convince workers not to organize in the first place.
Unite Here is the union trying to organize, as well as about 15,000 casino workers statewide. The Sycuan tribe resorted to a legal maneuver to refuse the union access to workers. When United Here sought arbitration as spelled out in TLRO, the tribe pointed out that some courts have questioned TLRO’s, saying that the National Labor Relations Act trumps it. Of course, most tribes have claimed that the NLRA does not apply to them, nevertheless Sycuan cited it. Unite Here represented tens of thousands of casino workers across the United States, including in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
According to Sycuan Tribal Chief Administrative Officer Adam Day, interviewed by Voice of San Diego, the tribe must follow federal law, so arbitration is voided.
This caused Unite Here to sue the tribe in federal court to force it to follow the TLRO. The court ruled for the union, and the tribe has now appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to determine which rules apply, NLRA or TLRO. Day told Voice: “The fact of the matter is there is a legitimate legal question as to which labor law applies, and once that is decided, we will fully comply.”
While the case is before the appeals court, the tribe has used the time to require workers to attend meetings during work hours run by Crossroads Group, which specializes in resisting unionization efforts. The tribe paid $66,191 for the services of what Unite Here calls “union busters.”
One union representative who attended one of the meetings, Cynthia Ramirez, said a Crossroads representative told attendees, ““I’m here to tell you why you shouldn’t be part of a union.” Ramirez also resents what she calls the casino’s “guests over employees” corporate culture.
She has other complaints, ranging from an inconsistent disciplinary system, to frequent sexual harassment by guests in the High Limit room, to pregnant workers forced to work in smoking sections.
Casino General Manager Rob Cinelli, counters that sexual harassers are expelled from the property.
“We do everything in our power to protect our team members,” he said. “No matter what we do, it’s hard to prevent that sort of action from our guests — I don’t know any business, at least in the hospitality world, whether it be a bar, club or casino, where this doesn’t happen.”
Others complain that their workloads have increased due to understaffing caused by the pandemic without a resultant pay increase. They don’t even get a lunch hour since that is not required by tribal regulations.
A line cook, Drew Hooks, who is also a political activist, told Voice that announced bonuses have later been rescinded, using higher costs of the renovation as the excuse. He also explains that the casino never advised workers about the dangers of Covid or to quarantine if fellow workers got sick.
Day countered, “We have a very satisfied and engaged workforce as a result of our tribal council and casino management providing a positive and engaging work environment and all the benefits Sycuan offers.”
How satisfied and engaged the workforce is will, of course, be eventually decided by a unionization vote, if that is allowed by the federal appeals court.
Hooks is sensitive to the issue of union rights bumping up against the historic repression of indigenous peoples, including the Sycuan people. He questions the whole idea of tribal sovereignty. “What does it actually mean? If I can be real, how much justice are you actually providing not only for your people, but for the people you are bringing on if you’re just replicating the same systems that brought the atrocities in the first place?”
Sycuan is one of the most successful tribal casino operators in the state, but like all gaming tribes in California, has found it hard to reconcile unionization with tribal sovereignty.
