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Flamingo
backs off extended shift for Dealers
By Sharon
Gerrie
Staff writer - Las Vegas Business Press
The extended shift time for dealers of 80 minutes on and 20
minutes off experimented recently at the Flamingo Hilton, has been
rescinded in the face of Dealer opposition, according to Terry
Lindberg, a public relations representative for the company.
Because the controversy became an agenda item, Pat Kearns,
vice president of casino operations for the Flamingo, held a
closed meeting for dealers on May 3. Lindberg reported
approximately 100 out of 300 dealers attended and informally voted
by a show of hands to rescind the extended shift time and return
to the 60 minutes on and 20 minutes off status. Lindberg said the
old scheduling would be implemented immediately.
Tony Badillo, president of The Nevada Casino Dealers
Association (NCDA) said even though the extended shift time
experiment was only tried at the Flamingo Hilton, his organization
felt strongly enough about the switch to stand in opposition
before the practice was extended to other Park Place Entertainment
Inc. properties. The organization also owns Bally's, the Las Vegas
Hilton and the recently acquired Caesar's Palace.
In mid-April, after meeting with 41 dealers at The Flamingo
Hilton, Kearns issued a memo to put employees changing the dealer
shift schedule from 60 minutes on and 20 minutes off the tables to
80 minutes on and 20 minutes off. Kearns wrote in the memo:
"This would be better for the employees and the table games
department. The dealers will make more tokes, work less overtime
and we will save payroll dollars (which will enable us to fund
other
improvements)."
"I
got mixed messages, I guess."
-Pat Kearns,
(Flamingo VP of casino operations.)
Three days
later, a petition signed by more than 100 Flamingo dealers said:
"We, the undersigned dealers, oppose unequivocally and
without reservation the change in work rules that would require us
to work 1 hour 20 minutes on, with a 20 minute break."
Kearns said he was suprised at the petition and thought his survey
of a cross-section of dealers was a fair sampling and an unbiased
show of support for the shift change. "I got mixed messages,
I guess," Kearns said, "I held skip level meetings,
meetings with employees on various pay levels and thought people
would be behind it, so we tried the change for a week."
Kearns, a former dealer, said he wanted to improve conditions, not
to make them worse.
In a April 26 letter to Arthur Goldberg, president and CEO
of Park Place Entertainment Inc., Badillo said Kearns "met
with only a very small, handpicked percentage of dealers and by
their own account of this meeting, some felt intimidated and were
coerced into saying that they would try the altered work
schedule."
Badillo, a retired dealer after almost 40 years with the
Sands, said for years the normal shift for a dealer
was " 40 (minutes) on and 20 (minutes) off." The change
to "60 on and 20 off" was difficult, but it was most
casinos now expect of its dealers.
Mirage Resorts reports its dealers are still 40 minutes on
and 20 off; Station Casinos schedules dealers at 60 on and 20 off;
and Circus Circus dealers work 60 on and 20 off.
Jack Lipsman, vice president of the NCDA, said keeping a
dealer at a table for more than 60 minutes was asking for mistakes
and would result in poor customer service and have a negative
effect on dealer morale. Lipsman said the dealer is expected to
totally concentrate on the game during the shift. After a certain
period of time, he added, it's difficult to maintain the focus.
In his letter to Goldman, Badillo said the loss of
concentration can lead to loss of game protection, which would
overshadow any money saved on payroll from the extended shifts.
Lipsman said when changes like these arise, the talk of creating a
union for the dealers becomes more attractive to the Casino
Dealers Association members. Currently, there is no dealers' union
and membership in the association is voluntary. The
organization has no collective bargaining rights.
May 10 1999
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