Dealers At Atlantic City Casino Vote To Unionize

Sunday, March 18th 2007, 5:45 pm

By: News On 6

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) _ After many failed attempts to unionize dealers in this gambling city, more than 80 percent of the floor employees at Caesars Atlantic City casino have voted to join a union.

Full- and part-time table game, keno dealers and simulcast employees voted 572-128 late Saturday to become part of the United Auto Workers, according to the national union.

``Atlantic City is a real union town, but the one huge group of workers who were not unionized were the dealers,'' said Elizabeth Bunn, secretary-treasurer of the national UAW. ``The movement is excited about changing that, about bringing dealers in.''

The union is also seeking to represent workers at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino; a certification election is scheduled there March 31.

Alyce Parker, a spokeswoman for Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns four Atlantic City casinos including Caesar's, said Sunday that the company will be filing an objection to the vote with the National Labor Relations Board.

The UAW won governmental approval for an election in February. Union policy is to have at least 60 percent of workers sign cards indicating their support for a union before submitting a petition to the NLRB seeking an election.

Many of the 45,000 casino workers in the city already are represented by unions, including many service employees, but dealers are not among them. Previous efforts to unionize dealers by the Teamsters, the United Food & Commercial Workers and the Sports Arena Employees union all were unsuccessful.