San Pablo casino workers ratchet up campaign for better wages

UNITE HERE represents workers in the U.S. and Canada in:

September 26, 2011

Workers at the East Bay's only Indian casino have asked the San Pablo council to help them in their quest for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Casino San Pablo Workers, Contra Costa Labor Council, UNITE HERE Local 2850, SEIU-USWW, Oakland Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), San Pablo Residents, and many others stood up for the casino workers at a council meeting on September 19th.

More than 150 food service, housekeeping and other workers and their union, Unite Here Local 2850, are at a bitter stalemate with Casino San Pablo, owned by the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians. The workers say the casino has cut their benefits while denying them a raise.

Starting pay of Local 2850 members at Casino San Pablo ranges from $8 an hour, or the minimum wage in California, for porters and food servers, to $14.12 an hour for a lead cook, with an average wage of $9.50 an hour, said union organizer Max Alper.

Local 2850 President Wei-Ling Huber said management's lamentation about health care costs rings hollow, arguing that only about half the number of workers get it today as did in 2002.

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Learn more about the fight at www.sharesanpablo.org.