Amelia Rivera has been a dealer at Caesars Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., for 18 years. She loves her job creating a friendly atmosphere where people can enjoy playing at the tables.
However, after 18 years on the job, Rivera makes only $7.70 an hour, plus tips. She and her co-workers have to pay for expensive family health care coverage that does not even cover the basics. Rivera and her co-workers are on their feet for eight hours a day.
"The conditions under which the dealers are working right now are unbelievable," says Rivera. "My fellow dealers are all family people. They cry to me when their kids are sick. They can’t afford to take them to the doctor."
To gain a say in their working conditions and win improvements in their wages and benefits, Rivera and her co-workers began to form their union with the UAW in the fall of 2006. According to Rivera, once management found out, they began holding anti-union meetings, which workers were forced to attend.
Management also tried to divide workers, many of whom are immigrants, mostly from Latin America and Asia. But the workers remained united. They distributed a statement that they would stand together and they rallied in support of each other.
Rivera says she felt she was being watched; like management was trying to provoke her into doing something that could get her fired.
Despite management’s campaign of fear and divisiveness, an overwhelming majority of the workers signed cards stating their desire to form their union. Rivera and her co-workers had their election in March 2007 and won by a wide margin.
However, workers at two other Atlantic City casinos were not able to withstand their employers’ anti-union campaign and lost their elections.
Rivera and her co-workers at Caesars now have to start the second fight—for a first contract. Meanwhile, the workers at the other casinos wait for the National Labor Relations Board to decide on the fairness of the elections. Regardless of the outcome, Rivera says, no worker should have to suffer through the kind of conditions she and her co-workers had to endure for simply exercising their legal right to form a union to better their lives.
