Stalled Compacts May Move – Labor Loses

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez has told organized labor that he would not be able to get their key objective included in the gambling compacts – a collective-bargaining tool known as card-check neutrality. Labor leaders say card-check neutrality – the ability to organize workers simply by signing up a majority on cards expressing support for a union – is necessary to protect easily intimidated casino employees, who work under surveillance cameras that permit almost constant scrutiny by management. But the five tribes with pending compacts – Sycuan, Pechanga, Agua Caliente of Palm Springs, Morongo of Riverside County and San Manuel of San Bernardino County – adamantly oppose tougher labor provisions in their compacts, which already permit unions approved through secret-ballot elections. “Sycuan employees have had the right to organize . . . since our compact took effect in May of 2000,” Danny Tucker, chairman of the Sycuan band near El Cajon told a Senate committee in April. “For the past seven years, no union has made any effort to organize our employees.”

Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a Fremont Democrat who is the speaker's point man on the compacts noted that in February, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled that tribes must comply with federal labor laws. The opinion against the San Manuel tribe held that Indian casinos should be treated as commercial, rather than government, operations under the National Labor Relations Act. “The San Manuel decision, in my opinion, basically pre-empts state and local governments from entering into labor relations with tribes", Torrico said. “So even if we were to try to impose some language in the compact, I don't think it would be legally enforceable.” Moreover, he said, the decision means that tribal employees “have the same rights and protections that any other employee in the country has when it comes to organizing.”

Jack Gribbon, state political director for UNITE HERE, the primary union attempting to organize Indian casinos, has warned that the San Manuel ruling is not final and, at the moment, applies only to San Manuel, which has a contract with the Communication Workers of America. Torrico said he and Núñez still are trying to persuade the tribes to agree not to oppose organizing efforts. “We're asking them to do it voluntarily, to be neutral when it comes to organizing,” he said.

Torrico said both sides also are exploring whether they can deal with other outstanding issues – such as casino operating rules, enforcement of child and spousal support orders and problem gambling – through a memorandum of understanding outside the compacts. Others say federal law requires any such state regulation of Indian gaming to be negotiated and outlined in a compact. The tribes are adamantly opposed to reopening the compacts. “These MOU's or MOA's, whatever they're going to call them, are nothing more than unenforceable promises,” said Cheryl Schmit of Stand Up for California, a grass-roots gambling watchdog.

Sen. Dean Florez, a Shafter Democrat who chairs a committee that held lengthy hearings on the compacts, said he didn't know whether any side deals would be enforceable. “The key question,” Florez said, “is are these addendums to the compacts or substantial changes to the compacts? We want to know how that works.”

Núñez and Torrico, have been in talks with the tribes for months. But the negotiations took off after Núñez invited leaders of four of the tribes to lunch in his office last Monday. It's also not clear whether all five tribes may be included if there is a breakthrough. Only the chairmen of Agua Caliente, Pechanga, San Manuel and Sycuan were invited to lunch with Núñez and Torrico. The Morongo’s recent multimillion-dollar media campaign urging approval of the compacts angered Núñez and other Democrats and their chairman was deliberately excluded from the lunch. “I'm not going to talk about that,” Morongo spokesman Patrick Dorinson said of the slight. “There have been discussions, and we think things are moving in a positive direction.”

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