1st Labor Union Contract Signed by Tribal Casino

With the jingle of countless slot machines, gambling has generated huge revenue for California’s once-impoverished casino tribes.

Squarely in the middle of those profitable gambling halls stands a stark counterpoint on the wage scale: Many of the busboys, cashiers, cooks, waitresses and other employees of Native American tribal casinos rank among the state’s most poorly compensated workers.

But change may be coming. In Northern California, a tribe with a profitable gambling business has signed a union agreement that will boost salaries and provide medical benefits to workers who, in many cases, had been relying on taxpayer-funded government health-care programs.

The Rumsey Rancheria of Wintun Indians, which operates the successful Cache Creek Casino, an hour’s drive west of Sacramento, has agreed to a three-year contract that hikes wages 12% and provides affordable family health care.

Labor leaders say it is the first binding collective bargaining agreement forged with a tribal casino in the United States.

“This is what we hope will be the beginning of a new standard for the industry,” said Jack Gribbon, California political director for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. “We salute the tribe.”

For Anita Jayne Eubank, a server at the casino’s buffet restaurant for the last four years, the contract means her first raise, along with more job security and enhanced health benefits. “Really, it’s just a powerful thing that happened,” said Eubank, who previously lived on her tips. Most of her salary went to pay for health insurance.

The Rumsey deal also could be the start of correcting a paradox that has not been lost on employees of tribal gambling halls around the Golden State.

Though impoverished less than a generation ago, many California tribes have proved less than eager to spread newfound gambling wealth to their working-class employees, who are mostly non-Indians.

“It is ironic,” Eubank said. “I wonder whether they have no concept what we’re experiencing because their own lives changed so fast.”

Aside from the Rumsey agreement, casino workers have made scant headway in forging union contracts with California gambling tribes. In heavily unionized Las Vegas, busboys typically make about $9.50 an hour, while in California’s Indian casinos they make just $6.75.

Several tribes in Southern California don’t welcome unions, Gribbon said. But a few around the state have agreed to “non-aggression pacts” allowing organizing activities.

A key sticking point is tribal sovereignty, he said. “If you’re a tribe that has only briefly been out of poverty,” Gribbon said, “anything that looks like a loss of control may be perceived as a threat to your sovereignty.”

Mark Merin, an attorney for the Rumsey tribe, said the union contract calls for a limited waiver of sovereignty not unlike what the tribe might sign with an outside vendor or construction company doing work on the reservation. The agreement does not open the tribe up to national labor rules, he said. A tribal labor panel, for instance, will handle arbitration of work disputes.

The contract also gives the tribe a powerful counter-argument in the state Capitol at a pivotal juncture as Gov. Gray Davis pushes for gambling tribes to ante up $1.5 billion a year to help stem the gaping state budget shortfall.

Gribbon’s union enjoys good ties with Davis and other Democrats. It also has proven to be a feisty ally for tribes in dealing with Washington. The union played a key role in convincing Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) to incorporate a provision in an omnibus Native American bill that may allow the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to build a casino in San Pablo in the San Francisco Bay Area. When another Democrat, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, looked to undermine the deal a year later, the union helped rebuff the challenge.

For the Rumsey band, good relations with the union could prove useful as Davis sits down in the coming months with tribes to renegotiate the gaming compacts that spell out how many slot machines will be allowed in the years to come. “Having union support is perhaps a feather in our cap,” said Merin, the Rumsey tribe attorney.

In addition, by boosting health benefits, the Rumsey tribe can avoid a stigma dogging several casino tribes -- that taxpayers have been left to pick up the cost of health care for many employees of tribal casinos.

While that argument can be made about many low-wage industries, tribal casinos have been open for particular scrutiny because of their rapid success.