By Michael Mishak (contact)
Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 | 2 a.m.

As unions continue to push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, one of the labor movement’s most progressive leaders is sending a message to his colleagues: Don’t hold your breath.

John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here, the international hotel and casino workers union, told attendees at the Global Gaming Expo on Wednesday that the Employee Free Choice Act has dim legislative prospects — and that unions shouldn’t rely on it as a fix-all solution to labor’s decades-long membership slide.

“There is no possibility it comes up in the Senate this year,” said Wilhelm, also the onetime leader of the Culinary Union. “Whether it comes up next year is open to question, and whether it gets 60 votes in the Senate is open to question.”

He added: “I support it. But I don’t regard it as a magic bullet.”

The comments are in stark contrast to those of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who has pledged to get “card check” legislation, along with health care reform, passed this year. But with Congress bogged down in the health care debate, labor law reform looks increasingly unlikely — at least in the short term.

Focusing on gaming, Wilhelm called for labor and management to renew their famously collaborative relationship and work together to “reinvent” the industry as it struggles to recover from the recession. Over the past two decades, he said that partnership led to unprecedented growth, both in union membership and gaming revenue.

The Culinary grew from about 18,000 members in 1987 to 60,000 in 2007. The organizing was done outside the secret-ballot election process governed by the National Labor Relations Board, which can pit unions against high-powered management lawyers in long, drawn-out campaigns and legal challenges.

Companies agreed to recognize the union and negotiate as soon as organizers collected union cards from a majority of a property’s workers.

“Do we want a highly adversarial relationship in an industry that depends on customers? I don’t think so,” he said. “We all rely on customers coming in every day and they have to feel good about that experience.”

Wilhelm noted that the union and the casino companies established an employee training academy to revolutionize food and beverage service in Las Vegas in the 1990s, turning the land of cheap buffets into a world-class dining destination.

“I think unions have an obligation to represent their members in the fullest possible sense, including and in particular what keeps the industry healthy,” he said. “We don’t do our job if the industry can’t prosper.”

To point, Wilhelm cited an agreement the Culinary struck with major Las Vegas casino operators over the summer. Sympathetic to the casinos’ tumbling revenue, the union agreed to reopen its contract, ultimately postponing a wage increase in exchange for, among other things, an extension of recall rights — a requirement that casinos call laid-off union workers back to work, by order of seniority, as soon as positions become available.

Likewise, the Culinary’s sister local in Atlantic City settled labor talks with six casinos last week by shortening the term of the contract — two years instead of five — and agreeing to wage freezes in the first year. In return, the companies agreed to maintain health and pension benefits.

Tribal representatives in the panel audience Thursday were not convinced.

Some were still burning from a 2007 federal appeals court ruling that unions have the right to organize workers at tribal-owned casinos. The court upheld a 2004 decision by the National Labor Relations Board, which reversed long-standing precedent when it deemed the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians an employer under the National Labor Relations Act.

Several tribal leaders described themselves as “not anti-union, but pro-sovereignty,” arguing that tribal governments, not the federal government, should draft legislation governing organizing. Some said they were pushing for an exemption from the Employee Free Choice Act.
 

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