Contract negotiations at the Isle casino in Pompano Beach, Fla., began July 8, shortly after workers won union recognition June 11. The workers secured affiliation with UNITE HERE with the support of an overwhelming majority of casino employees after a yearlong organizing campaign.
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“Since we started the union campaign in June [2007], it’s been a battle,” said Lindberg Powell, a buffet cook and a leader in the union committee. “I’ve seen it all, but we made it through. Through the understanding that the committee has in knowing exactly what we were doing and through all our hard work, that’s how we got here,” Powell added.
“[Our victory] sent a statement to the entire South that workers are tired of being stepped on,” said casino worker Omar Williams. “The companies entrust us to make their profits, so why can’t the profits be shared with the workers?”
The Isle casino, located in northern Broward County, is owned by Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc., the first publicly traded gaming establishment and one of the largest gaming corporations in the United States. It operates 16 facilities in six states and two countries. It is the only international gaming corporation with headquarters in the United States. The company took in over $1 billion in revenue in 2007.
The start of contract negotiations on July 8 marked the first time the company was forced into collective bargaining talks with workers at any of its facilities.
The Isle casino at Pompano Park employs about 1,100 workers, with nearly 500 of them eligible to join the union. A large portion of the workers are Haitian, African American and Latino.
UNITE HERE has initiated a regional organizing campaign in other South Florida casinos, with contract negotiations already underway in the nearby Gulfstream Casino. Other organizational efforts in South Florida involve organizing workers in hotels and airports, as well as other service workers in the tourism industry.
Tourism is the largest sector of Florida’s economy, employing millions of workers. The gaming industry lobbied Florida politicians to allow gaming outside of Native lands. Laws allowing gaming passed two years ago.
Union members are fully aware that labor laws have been historically created to undermine the legal rights of workers to organize into unions. Organizers have been on an aggressive campaign to increase support from all the workers, strengthen the union’s internal ranks and prepare a strategy to defeat any union-busting efforts by the company.
“There is a clear understanding among the workers that victory is better attained through struggle in the workplace than through the realm of a legal system that only represents the interests of the rich and privileged,” commented Emmanuel Lopez, a slot attendant and member of the union’s contract negotiating committee.
“The workplace, in the South especially, is a most undemocratic environment,” Lopez added. “Our struggle as workers will show the bosses and teach workers what real democracy in the workplace can look like.”
Among the casino workers’ most important demands is access to quality health care.
“We want the company to recognize that health care is a fundamental right whose benefits should not be realized inequitably by any person, whether he or she is an hourly worker, manager or executive in the company,” Williams said. “Every worker, regardless of their position within the Isle Corporation, should enjoy the same right, as the fruit of his or her labor with the company, to afford and enjoy a life free of sickness, pain and suffering.”
