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Monday, June 05, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
COLUMN:
GAMING CHIPS
Advocate seeks
better conditions for casino dealers
Tony Badillo remembers
nights when Frank Sinatra would saunter up to his table at the
Sands, and tell a young Badillo to take a rest while the Rat Pack
king dealt to star-struck gamblers.
Badillo remembers the night he spotted two women making love
behind a nearby bank of slot machines or the time a stressed-out
21 player on a run of bad luck keeled over and died at Badillo's
table.
So when the now-retired 67-year-old Las Vegan speaks about the
plight of dealers he figures he has some real-world experiences to
draw upon.
As executive director of the 6,000-member Nevada Casino Dealers
Association, Badillo is presiding over a group that is going
national by appealing to dealers in emerging casino markets.
"The association wasn't formed to go against the
hotels," he said. "All we want is a fair deal. For years
we feel the dealers have been the backbone of the industry."
But unlike cocktail waitresses, food servers, loading-dock workers
and a variety of other hotel-casino employees, dealers are not
unionized.
They've tried, but casino operators have fought them, Badillo
said, noting that organizers have been fired and blacklisted from
working at other dealing jobs in Las Vegas.
"If you get labeled you're going to be blackballed,"
Badillo said. "They put a jacket on you. You're in a helluva
bad shape."
Dealers make minimum wage or slightly more, but a decline in tips,
which are shared by everyone on a shift rather than kept by their
recipients, has cut into earnings, he said.
He speaks of dealers who are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome
caused by the repetitive nature of dealing cards. Others are
suffering the effects of secondhand smoke, he said.
"It used to be even better, but the working conditions went
down and the tips went down," Badillo argued.
The association, which is changing its name to the American
Federation of Gaming Employees, has joined with the United Auto
Workers Union to reach out to dealers in Detroit, Illinois and
Atlantic City in hopes of unionizing.
Badillo said he was questioned by police in March while passing
out literature at an Illinois casino.
Meanwhile, he said, casinos throughout the industry are forcing
older dealers to retire in favor of younger workers who receive
less-valuable benefits.
"Old timers should have the same chance as the young
people," said Badillo, who retired when the Sands closed in
1997 to make way for The Venetian. "Don't push them out. They
built this town."
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