collective bargaining strategy memo—- we are the group to represent the union (HERE Local 101).only do the wages, sick leave and health insurance part.instructions :Regardless of why they may enter into collective bargaining, any union and management team will want to get the most out of the process for their side.The key to getting the most out of the collective bargaining process is preparing a clear strategy.Prepare a collective bargaining strategy memo. The memo is 2-3 double-spaced pages and must be in Times New Roman 12-pt font.This is the first of your two group assignments for this class.( we are on union sides)A strategy describes your aims and priorities that you should develop in advance of your participation in the collective bargaining process.A collective bargaining strategy memo should reflect the needs of your side and the way you will approach bargaining. It is not a series of proposals. In many cases a CB strategy document is no more than a single sheet of paper.It may be in plain and simple language, your strategy should set out the needs of your side in a manner which is understandable and straightforward.Evidence can include:
Referrals to settlements in other similar disputes
Data that shows the costs and benefits of your proposals
Identifying the financial consequences of certain proposals.
RESEARCHERS will be responsible for writing clear goals that your team wishes to achieve from bargaining with regards to the negotiation issues in the case study.Write specific arguments (with evidence) supporting your position.
casino_europa_and_here_local_101_union_plans.docx
casino_europa_scenario_s18rev.docx
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Casino Europa UNION Team:
Date:
Team Members Names:
INITIAL PROPOSALS
Item
Proposal
Cost (If any)
Wages
Health
Insurance
Vacation Time
Sick Leave
Job Security
Contract
duration
(length)
Other
Other
Attach additional sheets as needed with proposed language changes.
1
ESTIMATED ANNUAL COSTS
(add or delete years as needed)
Year 1:
Year 2:
Year 3:
TOTAL LIFE OF CONTRACT
COST: $
Casino Europa Union Team
DO NOT SHARE WITH OTHER TEAM
Date:
Team Members Names:
TARGET SETTLEMENT—What we really want
Item
Proposal
Cost (If any)
Wages
Health
Insurance
Vacation Time
Sick Leave
Job Security
2
Contract
duration
(length)
Other
Other
Attach additional sheets as needed with proposed language changes.
ESTIMATED ANNUAL COSTS
(add or delete years as needed)
Year 1:
Year 2:
Year 3:
TOTAL LIFE OF CONTRACT
COST: $
3
Casino Europa Union Team
DO NOT SHARE WITH OTHER TEAM
Date:
Team Members Names:
MINIMUM SETTLEMENT—The walk away/strike point
Item
Proposal
Cost (if any)
Wages
Health
Insurance
Vacation Time
Sick Time
Job Security
Contract
Duration
(length)
Other
Other
Attach additional sheets as needed with proposed language changes.
4
ESTIMATED ANNUAL COSTS
(add or delete years as needed)
Year 1:
Year 2:
Year 3:
TOTAL LIFE OF CONTRACT
COST: $
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Casino Europa and HERE Local 101
The following is a collective bargaining simulation created by Carla Katz and Paula Voos.
Background
It is December 1, 2025 and several years have passed since casino gambling came to
Northern New Jersey. Four casinos now grace the Meadowlands, and employees in each are
represented by the UNITE HERE Local 101, which is part of the union’s Hotel Trades
Council headquartered in New York City. Because the four casinos opened at different
times, the collective bargaining agreements (contracts) expire at different times.
The collective bargaining agreement between Casino Europa and Local 101 will
expire at the end of the month. The current collective bargaining agreement with Casino
Europa is only one year’s duration and covers most hotel employees, including
housekeeping staff, front desk clerks, valets, concierges and cocktail servers. It does not
cover kitchen staff, wait-staff, room service staff, bartenders, clerical staff, reservation staff,
or dealers in the casino.
Since they are private sector employees, Casino Europa workers have the right to
strike under the law. A strike would cost this casino approximately $1,000,000 (one million
dollars) per day in terms of lost revenues, along with a loss of good will in the state. While it
may not be a great time to strike, the union does have leverage here since most Casino
Europa customers would simply spend their money at any of the other three casinos.
These casinos have employees represented by the same union, and this local has been
successful in conducting strikes when necessary in the past.
Casino Europa is a relatively small corporation that also operates in Atlantic City,
where it owns Casino Royale, and in Las Vegas, where it owns Casino Monte Christo. It has
employees who are union represented at each location by HERE. It competes with many
larger gaming corporations in all three locations, as well as other gambling facilities in
Connecticut, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Atlantic City. Atlantic City has revived
from problems that it experienced earlier in the 2000s – in part due to revenues flowing
from the Meadowlands to the State of NJ, which the government has spent revitalizing
Atlantic City. Moreover, Atlantic City was helped by NJ state legislation earlier in the decade
allowing recreational marijuana sales in this one city of NJ, which helped Atlantic City build
a major concert business. The Meadowland casinos cannot offer this amenity. However,
Casino Europa and the other three Meadowlands casinos have captured the NYC “day trip”
gamblers that once traveled to Atlantic City by bus.
Casino Europa has tried to position itself in the Meadowland market as the location
for the “high end” international gambler. It has done that by having more luxurious
services, better accommodations, exceptional entertainment events, and games that appeal
to these gamblers. It has, unlike the others, de-emphasized slot machines and other lowbudget gambling. It advertises itself as providing a “Monte Carlo gambling experience.”
Still, it finds itself continually under continual competitive pressure in the marketplace.
Under the existing agreement, members earn the following hourly rates by title:
Housekeeper
$21 per hour
1
Front Desk Clerk
Valet
Cocktail Server
Concierge
$23 per hour
$21 per hour (not including tips)
$13 per hour (not including tips)
$26 per hour
Casino Europa employs 5,000 workers with about 3,000 of those employees covered
by the HERE Local 101 collective bargaining agreement. The unionized workers are all full
time employees who work 40 hours per week. The breakdown of unionized workers is
approximately: 1,500 Housekeepers; 350 Front Desk Clerks; 150 Valets; 900 Cocktail
Servers and 100 Concierges. Overall the average hourly wage in the bargaining unit is $19
an hour.
The great majority of the 2,000 nonunionized workers are part time working 22
hours per week on average. Many of the part-time workers are in nonunion jobs in the
kitchens, amongst the wait staff, and so forth, but some of them work in the same jobs as the
union members. The average wage of the non-union workers is $16 per hour with parttime non-union servers earning only $9 an hour plus tips – the legal minimum for tipped
employees in 2025 in NJ.
Information about Casino Europa
Casino Europa is modeled after the most successful Las Vegas casinos with a
spacious floor plan, high-end restaurants and top quality entertainment. It has a total of
1,898 rooms. There’s a plush casino with burlesque stage and electronic table-game pit,
plus a party pool run by a Las Vegas entertainment group. Physically, the casino has black
granite floors, deep pile carpets and is decorated with real artwork by well-known artists,
and has attracted superstar musicians such as Beyonce and Kanye West who have played to
sold out crowds. Top-notch service and amenities, including fine chocolates in every guest
room, Egyptian cotton sheets, 3 outdoor pools and an exquisite silver grand piano in the
lobby are the hallmark of this new-style casino.
Casino Europa is the newest of the four casinos in the Meadowlands and the most
luxurious. It opened only 15 months ago. Casino Europa spends so much on amenities that
it both desires and needs to keep labor costs as low as possible.
Before it opened, Casino Europa made an agreement with Local 101 that it would
stay neutral in any effort to organize its employees in the job classifications that the union
now represents, and stated that it would recognize the union if it was presented with a
majority of authorization cards signed by the employees. This is known as a “neutrality and
card check” agreement. Casino Europa did this because top corporate management viewed
unionization as pretty much inevitable and it was used to dealing with HERE at its other
properties.
The union quickly signed up members and negotiated a one-year contract with basic
protections standard to almost all collective bargaining agreements. Casino Europa’s
management was very happy with the economic terms of this initial contract because,
under it, its wages are about equal to those of the other Meadowlands casinos, but its
benefits are significantly less generous, and it has more management discretion on rules
affecting employees.
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Specifically, employees have no paid sick leave or paid vacation at this time. There
is no pension or 401K, no life insurance or dental policy. There is a “Bronze level”
healthcare plan furnished to employees, but not their family members – it is at the
minimum level allowed under the Affordable Care Act. Except for cocktail servers,
employees are furnished one uniform upon hire and $100 is deducted for it from their first
check – they are then credited with $10 a week additional pay for the next ten weeks to
make the first uniform “free” to those who work at least 10 weeks. Additional uniforms, or
uniforms of different size are available for purchase, at cost, although there is some
grumbling among female employees about the lack of uniforms available in larger sizes.
The employer has a strict “personal appearance policy” and employees are sent home
without pay if uniforms are dirty, not pressed, or are too tight.
At the same time Casino Europa let the union organize some groups of employees
without a fight, it also let the union know it intended to stay union-free other categories of
employees, particularly for part-time workers and for the crucial group of employees
known as dealers, who run gambling games. These employees are shown anti-union videos
as part of their employee orientation and supervisors are told to keep an eye out for any
individuals who seem to be asking about the benefits of joining the union, and report
anything they hear back to higher management.
Information about UNITE HERE Local 101
Nationally, UNITE HERE boasts a diverse membership, comprising workers from
many immigrant communities as well as high percentages of African-American, Latino, and
Asian-American workers. The majority of UNITE HERE members are women. Through
organizing, UNITE HERE members have made apparel jobs in the South, hotel housekeeping
jobs in cities across North America, and hundreds of thousands of other traditionally lowwage jobs into good, family-sustaining, middle class jobs.
HERE Local 101, based in New York City, was set up specifically by the Hotel Trades
Council in NYC to represent casino workers in the Meadowlands. The Hotel Trades Council
itself represents about 40,000 workers in multiple hotels in NYC and Northern NJ. It was
delighted when Casino Europa made it relatively easy to organize certain groups of
employees under an initial employer neutrality and card check agreement, but then the
union was disappointed at what it was initially able to achieve at the bargaining table.
Its first collective bargaining agreement was merely one-year duration (which is
atypical as most other casinos have 3 year agreements) and barely covered the basic
protections. The collective bargaining agreement has provisions for union security, wages,
just cause (“an employee can only be disciplined or discharged for just cause”), a basic
grievance procedure, an overtime pay provision, basic health care coverage for employees
only, and a management’s rights clause. It does not currently have provisions for uniform
allowances, sick leave, vacation leave, retirement, or a job-security clause guaranteeing
layoff by seniority.
And the contract was silent on many things that the union and its members care
about. During the past 15 months, Casino Europa management has repeatedly announced
“temporary layoffs” targeting certain union members. Since the contract has no provision
addressing layoffs, the employer decides unilaterally who is laid off and for how long. The
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casino also engages in “temporary reductions in hours” for full-time employees which
means that those employees lose union protections when they drop below a 40 hour
workweek. They end up competing with the many part-time workers who want more hours
or want to become more full-time. Workers complain that this situation is untenable since
they can’t count on the amount of their paycheck, which makes it impossible for them to
budget and pay their bills. This situation also wreaks havoc with the union’s treasury since
the number of members who are paying dues changes constantly.
Moreover, favoritism is a big issue and employees are complaining about “favorites”
being treated better on the job than others by managers. Employees say that certain people
are “punished” by being singled out for temporary layoff or reduction to part-time hours.
There is a sense that some managers discriminate against union activists when awarding
good shifts or overtime opportunities and there are rumblings about “appearance
discrimination,” sexism, and racism. As is true at hotels and casinos elsewhere, racial and
ethnic minorities are much less likely to work at the front desk, for example, and more likely
to be employed “in the back of the house” where they do not come into direct contact with
the public. Employees who do not go out for drinks with managers, or who do not flirt with
them, find that sometimes they are not asked if they want to work overtime. And
employees are asking the union to find out how it is that some chosen few are offered the
opportunity to train to become dealers, and others are not selected to try for that or other
higher-earning jobs.
What is Happening Now?
Last year, gambling revenues were approximately 2 billion in the four Meadowland
casinos. There is a steady stream of tourists visiting, often as part of a trip to New York City,
or as part of a major sporting event in the Meadowlands, but all the casinos, including
Casino Europa, have been having trouble filling into hotel rooms at other than peak times.
And if anything, competition from other locations is likely to increase – promoters of a
casino in the Hudson Valley are actively lobbying the NY State legislature for approval of
their plans.
The minimum wage in New Jersey is now $15 an hour and $18 an hour in New York
City. The stock market has been reaching new highs. The U.S. and Metropolitan NYC
economy overall is strong and unemployment in the New York City region stands at
approximately 4.5%. Inflation has been an issue recently and the CPI stands at 294 (about
25% above where it was in 2016). Employees are complaining they are having trouble
paying rents in the area. Nonetheless, Casino Europa has had no trouble attracting job
applicants.
Both management and the union are aware that another union – a local of the
United Automobile Workers (UAW) – has been attempting to organize dealers and parttime employees. Moreover, some current members are talking to others about leaving Local
101, and forming an unaffiliated local union. Apparently, some members believe the initial
contract is weak because there was some kind of “corrupt backroom deal” between Local
101 and management. They claim that with an unaffiliated local union they can get a better
contract, and represent part-time workers too, at least the ones that are in the same job
categories as the full-time employees.
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Meanwhile, Local 101 has been holding meetings with members to listen to their
demands – what they minimally want in order to vote to ratify a new contract. Management
has been considering what they would do in the event of a strike and nonunion employees
of Casino Monte Cristo in Las Vegas have been told that no vacations will be scheduled for
January or February, in case some of them need to be moved temporarily to New Jersey to
fill in for striking union members. Some rooms are being held back from the public to house
them – not that reservations are typically such that Casino Europa would usually be fully
sold out in mid-winter. Nonetheless, it is clear that management would prefer to avoid a
strike, as would Local 101.
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