Vegas dealers use Web to unionize

[Omaha Steve]

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/news/article_1307516.php/Vegas_dealers_use_Web_to_unionize

May 22, 2007, 2:00 GMT

LAS VEGAS, NV, United States (UPI) -- The Internet was the key to getting dealers at casino magnate Steve Wynn`s Las Vegas resort to vote overwhelmingly to join a union, organizers said.

'I`m certain we wouldn`t have voted in the union without the Internet and e-mail,' Wynn dealer and union organizer Jesse Guest said.

Days after Wynn told dealers he made 'a big mistake' in changing the rules so supervisors would share in their tips, the dealers voted 444-149 -- a 75 percent to 25 percent margin -- to join a union.

What turned the tide was how the dealers channeled their anger, the Las Vegas Sun reported. They went online, a frontier in the labor-organizing movement.

'Management can`t ignore what`s going on in (Internet) chat rooms. They have to be vigilant and respond,' Jules Crystal, a partner with Chicago`s Bryan Cave law firm and an adjunct professor of labor law at Northwestern University, told the newspaper.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International