Saturday, April 14, 2007

Organized labor today will announce its support for one of five big Indian gambling agreements that were blocked last year by Assembly Democrats, largely at the request of state and national labor leaders. AdvertisementArt Pulaski, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation, said in an interview yesterday that the organization would endorse a compact negotiated by the San Manuel band of San Bernardino County. Now that the influential labor federation is supporting the agreement, Pulaski said, he expected it would be ratified by the Assembly. The Senate has signaled its apparent willingness to approve all five compacts, which would authorize 22,500 more slots and generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the tribes and the state. Labor decided to back San Manuel's compact because the tribe had a collective bargaining agreement with the Communication Workers of America, Pulaski said. "As we have said consistently, we support the tribes," Pulaski said. "We just want to be able to have worker protections and they do there." The development could increase the pressure on the other four tribes – Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula, Morongo of east Riverside County and Agua Caliente of Palm Springs – to reach some accord with labor before their pending deals are positioned for final legislative votes. Unions lead by UNITE HERE have been pushing for compact language that would require what's known as card-check neutrality, the ability to establish a union by signing up a majority of workers without interference from an employer. A number of earlier compacts negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger included that stronger labor provision. The pending deals do not. At a Senate committee hearing yesterday on the Agua Caliente and Morongo compacts, leaders of both tribes said UNITE HERE has not attempted to exercise its right to organize casino workers under terms negotiated in their existing 1999 compacts. The communications workers union no longer organizes casino workers in California under a truce negotiated by national labor leaders. Nonetheless, the communications workers and San Manuel just concluded negotiations on a new, three-year contract.

"Labor seems to be the undercurrent for a lot of this discussion and it's an area where the tribe doesn't feel it has any issues," said Jake Coin, San Manuel's communications director.

The Senate Governmental Organization Committee will hold hearings today on San Manuel's compact, as well as those for Sycuan and Pechanga. Senate floor votes are expected to follow soon.