By
Michael Mishak
Sun, Apr 20, 2008 (2 a.m.)
When critics of
Wynn Las Vegas’ controversial
tip-sharing policy filed an
initiative petition this year to
protect dealers against having to
share tips with management, they
thought they were uniting against a
common enemy: Steve Wynn.
Now, they find,
an unlikely adversary has entered
the fray.
The 60,000-strong
Culinary Union, representing legions
of tip-earning casino workers up and
down the Strip, has sided with Wynn
and a few industry groups as they
seek in court to derail the efforts
of the International Union of
Gaming Employees, a private
advocacy group, to get either the
legislature or voters to change
state law to prohibit employers from
requiring employees to share tips
with certain other employees.
The gaming
employees group, which is not
registered with the U.S. Labor
Department as a union, plans to
protest Culinary’s perceived support
for Wynn’s position Monday by
marching on the union’s downtown
headquarters.
(The Transport
Workers Union, which is now at the
bargaining table with Wynn Las Vegas
negotiating a contract on behalf of
dealers, is not an official partner
in the effort. Wynn dealers,
however, are gathering signatures.)
The group argues
that the Culinary has sold out its
members and opened the door for
management to share in the tips of
waiters and cocktail waitresses,
among others.
But Culinary
officials say the group should take
a closer look at the union’s motion
to intervene in the matter. The
truth, they say, is buried deep in
the weeds of legalistic language.
Pilar Weiss, the
Culinary’s political director, said
the union agrees with the group’s
central premise: that workers should
keep their tips. But the initiative
is so convoluted that, if passed, it
would upset the Culinary’s contracts
with employers citywide, making for
costly legal battles over carefully
negotiated, nuanced tipping
policies, she said.
“They think we
are taking Steve Wynn’s side,” Weiss
said. “We see it as their initiative
undoing decades of our hard work.”
The gaming
employees group never approached the
Culinary for consultation or
support, she said. Had it called,
much of the fight could have been
avoided, she said.
The Culinary
reacted to Monday’s planned protest
by leafleting members at work Friday
with fliers promoting its binding
contracts for tip earners and
blasting the group’s initiative as a
“half-baked idea for (a) new law.”
According to the
union’s legal motion, tip-sharing
practices vary widely among the
union’s 30 or so job classifications
at various properties — and
sometimes even among shifts. Those
variations require a flexible
system, it says. The initiative,
however, proposes a
“one-size-fits-all” model, which the
union says would straitjacket
employees and disrupt long-standing
practices.
Al Maurice,
director of the International
Union of Gaming Employees and a
dealer at the Mirage, said his group
included a provision in the petition
that exempts employees covered under
collective bargaining agreements.
“Nothing will change to disrupt
things for the Culinary,” he said.
The union
disagrees. The provision, it says,
applies to contracts that authorize
the employer to make tip
determinations. Culinary contracts,
Weiss said, allow employees to
decide how tips are pooled.
A Magistrate
Court judge will weigh in on Monday
on whether the Culinary
can enter
the
lawsuit. [up]
