"Roughly 3,000 dealers at Foxwoods Resort & Casino will vote today regarding whether to join a union. The voting will take place at the casino from 8 a.m. to roughly 11 p.m., with the results known within hours of that.

Conducting the union vote was given a green light Wednesday when the National Labor Relations Board rejected the Mashantucket Pequot tribe’s request for a review of the district director’s decision allowing the vote to go forward. The Mashantuckets had argued tribal employment law has jurisdiction, a claim the regional labor board director rejected in setting the date for today’s vote.

It is impossible to understate the importance of this dispute, for workers and management, locally and nationally. If approved, this would be the first successful unionization at any tribal casino in the country.

Foxwoods and its neighbor, Mohegan Sun, are the region’s two largest employers, providing jobs for more than 20,000 Eastern Connecticut and neighboring Rhode Island citizens. A union victory in today’s vote would certainly start a massive union organizing effort to eventually include all casino workers under the union umbrella."

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Our view: Union vote critical to casinos, as well as region, nation (The Norwich Bulletin 11/24)