A source informs me — and the Transport Workers Union confirms — that dealers at Wynn Las Vegas are ramping up for a union vote. This looks like the moment that will decide whether dealers can stick together for their communal good or whether Strip casino managements will be able to continue their heretofore successful divide-and-conquer strategy.
If the TWU prevails at Wynn LV, making it the first front-rank Strip casino whose dealers unionize, the Lovemans, Lannis and Weidners of the world might want to start sticking pins in a Steve Wynn voodoo doll. It was his confrontationalism and tip-confiscation antics, after all, that upset the delicate modus vivendi between dealers, their bosses and the Culinary Union. If the beaten, mutilated and nearly unrecognizable carcass of Steve Wynn ever happens to be found on the erstwhile Desert Inn golf course, Metro ought to begin the search for suspects in the executive suites of rival casinos.
Assemblymen wuss out: Elsewhere, it was a dark day for tipped workers in Nevada, as the Judiciary Committee of the Nevada Assembly conspired to smother AB 357 (which would put an end to Wynn’s shameless money-grab) without so much as a word of debate, according to info originating from a very reliable source indeed.
How AB 357 went from having supposedly widespread (but evidently shallow) support to being DOA is a tale that I’m sure will ultimately be told. But it was evident that The Fix Was In when committee chair Bernie Anderson (D-Wynn Resorts) muzzled any dealer who mentioned the dreaded ‘W(ynn)’ word in testimony, taking a dive for Skeletor Steve. I guess he was afraid they might hurt Steve’s sensitive widdle feewings and would make him cry.
Considering that the whole controversy was started by one Steve Wynn and that the primary witness against AB 357 was Wynn nephew Andrew Pascal, Anderson’s "’Shut up,’ he explained" attitude toward those dealers brave enough to testify before his committee made it obvious who was pulling his puppet strings.
Perhaps one reason that no vote was taken — other than moral bankruptcy on the part of legislators — is that, should Wynn’s tip-confiscation policy be applied to other tipped workers in Nevada, any politician who voted to uphold it would probably be dead meat in the next election. It’s common knowledge that Nevada’s lawmakers are a wholly owned subsidiary of the casino industry but it would be a refreshing change if they occasionally pretended to lend an ear to the workers who make our service-based economy possible.
