Column: Democratic leader chooses tribes over labor

Thursday, July 5, 2007  

"When I wrote in these pages a couple of weeks ago that California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez was on the verge of selling out his longtime union allies and was ready to green-light the largest gambling expansion in recent history to the benefit of a few wealthy tribes, I got dealt a scathing e-mail from his deputy chief of staff. Steve Maviglio blasted me as just a “little presumptive” for predicting that his boss would make the deal and chided me by saying a real journalist should check that “something is true before going to print.”

And so it came to pass this past week that my presumption was, indeed, true. Núñez massaged the deal exactly as predicted and, after months of stalling, the Democratic-dominated Assembly has now rubber-stamped expansion deals that will award an additional 17,000 more slot machines (and perhaps an extra casino or two) to four Southern California gaming tribes already rolling in dough.

To make the deal, Núñez let the virulently antilabor tribes escape a demand that would have made it easier for unions to organize low-wage casino workers. (How low wage? Well, figure it this way. While the average gambling tribe member gets about $20,000 a month just for waking up in the morning, the average worker in one of the casinos that generates that bonanza makes about $20,000 a year — usually without health benefits.)"

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