by Jo*in*Vermont [courtesy of Blog for America]

In Las Vegas today, around noontime, a judge will decide if the caucus rules put in place last year will stand or fall.  If they stand, thousands of Union workers on the strip will have a chance to caucus; if they fall, we will have seen the first clear proof that the Clinton's change the rules to fit the circumstances - that they're more interested in winning a caucus than defending democracy.

What do you think about this court case - what do you think will be the outcome?

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Just an hour from now, UNITE HERE, which represents some Indian Casino workers, will hold a rally on the North Capitol Steps. The Assembly is currently renegotiating the compacts for additional and expanded casinos in the state.  Furthermore, these compacts could be at the leading edge of the fight for "card check" (PDF) in the nation as well. At this point it is not clear whether the labor issues will be dealt with. CPR has more:

Press release over the flip.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By David Brody
Professor Emeritus
University of California, Davis

Last summer the Governor struck a deal with five southern California tribes tripling their allotment of slot machines. The Legislature balked, however, and the gaming compacts are now back for reconsideration. They have been approved by the Senate, so it’s up to the Assembly. The debate vibrates with an energy that only big bucks can generate. The tribes, the State, assorted lobbyists, consultants, and party money-raisers—everyone stands to win, except the working people who keep the casinos running. There’ll be more jobs, yes, but at poverty-level wages. This country has a remedy for such inequities. It’s called collective bargaining.

If employees want collective bargaining, that’s their right under our labor law. All the compacts embrace this enshrined principle and, indeed, take the federal law as their template, which means, first, that the choice rests with casino workers and, second, that the casino operators have a “duty to bargain” once the majority has spoken. No one is contesting these basic rules. What is being contested, furiously, is a procedural question: How should majority rule be implemented?

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Dreier, Ph.D.
Professor of Politics
Occidental College

Part 1 in a 3 part series

In August 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger completed negotiations with California’s five wealthiest Indian tribes to allow a vast expansion of tribal casino gambling in the state. If ratified by the state Legislature, the negotiated agreements, called “compacts,” would authorize the Agua Caliente, Morongo, Sycuan, San Manuel and Pechanga tribes to triple the size of their casinos, destroying the character of several local communities and relegating other California tribes to second-class status.

Worth an estimated $60 billion, the compacts are a financial windfall for the five tribes. (Office of the Governor, August 08, 2006, Press release. The press release puts the net win at $320 per day, per machine. The net win of 22,500 new machines over 23 years is thus an estimated $60.4 billion.)