November 10, 1998 N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting. MS. ALEXANDER: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Courtney Alexander, and I'm the Research

Transcription

1 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 CHAIRPERSON JAMES: Ms. Alexander. MS. ALEXANDER: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Courtney Alexander, and I'm the Research Director for Culinary Union, an affiliate of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. Thank you for the opportunity to share our information about job quality in the gaming industry. The printed version of this testimony, which you should have in front of you, has enlarged charts behind the tabs so you can visualize my testimony. It also has background information on the distribution of gaming jobs in the state, which I've cut for the sake of time. It is important to note, however, that percent of Clark County's hotel- casino jobs are located on the Las Vegas Strip. In broad terms, each area represents hotel and food and beverage classifications, as well as slot change employees, whereas, dealers are non-union. As of October, including the recent opening of the Belagio Resort, HERE represents,00 hotel-casino workers in Clark County. Our membership is dominated by Las Vegas Strip workers just as that market dominates the county's gaming employment. Almost all major strip casinos have contracts with our union, as do most downtown hotel-casinos. Our membership also represents the diversity of gaming jobs. As you can see in figure behind that tab, percent of our members are white; percent Hispanic, percent African American, and percent Asian. Fifty-six RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

2 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 percent are women. With this background I would like to present data for your consideration that assess quality of casino jobs in Nevada. We believe there is a foundation of economic issues that define what a good job is. Does it pay well enough to provide for a family. Does it offer affordable health insurance, and does it provide retirement benefits. Well, there may be ways to measure subjective aspects of job quality like job satisfaction for example. I will focus my testimony on the hard facts we can derive about the quality of jobs in Nevada's gaming industry. First, we compare the quality of Nevada's gaming related jobs to hotel and restaurant jobs in the rest of the country. According to data from the Economic Policy Institute, non-supervisory hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada had an average hourly wage of $., compared to $. in the United States, as you can see in figure. That means that hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada, the category which includes casino workers, make $. per hour or percent more than their counterparts in the country as a whole. The Economic Policy Institute analysis also addresses the health insurance and pension questions. Figure shows that the share of non- supervisory hotel and restaurant workers who had health insurance in Nevada was percent, in contrast to percent in the US. Furthermore, percent of non-supervisory hotel and restaurant workers had a pension in Nevada and only percent did in the US. In Nevada hotel and RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

3 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 0 restaurant jobs with gaming clearly provide better wages and better health insurance and pension benefits than similar jobs in the rest of the country without gaming. This is a critical public policy point. America is rapidly becoming a service economy. Hotels and restaurants are among the fastest growing sector of the expanding service economy. If jobs in these sectors are good jobs that can support families, this country will prosper. If service jobs have low wages and inadequate benefits the economy will become increasingly polarized and unable to support our standard of living. In short, gaming jobs in Nevada are the kind of jobs America needs. Within Nevada, however, there's a story to tell about why gaming jobs are so good. Part of the explanation may be a combination of Nevada's low unemployment rate, it's rapid job expansion, and the fact that casinos are generally more profitable than most hotels and restaurants without gaming. But part of the reason is gaming jobs in Nevada are more likely to be union than average hotel and restaurant jobs in this country. In Nevada union casino jobs are higher quality jobs, and that higher quality coupled with our stronger than average union density, has the effect of raising the standard in Las Vegas. I should add that this higher union density has been for the most part achieved through strong labor-management cooperation. As figure illustrates, one in four jobs in Clark County's gaming sector is represented by HERE, while in the United States one out of seven jobs overall is union and one in RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

4 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 ten hotel jobs is union. If we look at just the job classifications we represent, our union density is percent in Clark County and percent on the Strip, as shown in figure. So what does this mean? Do you know the Center for Economic and Business Research did a wage survey of casinos located in different Las Vegas markets. The Strip, downtown, and neighborhood casinos. The survey estimates average wage rates for specific job classifications. Let me preface these data by acknowledging that the study does not attempt to calculate weighted average wages, obviously arguably the most useful number, and it does not include every casino in the respective markets. With that caveat, these data are consistent with information from other sources. Figures and show that for job classifications we represent the average wage rate on the Strip where are union density was percent, was $. according to the survey. In stark contrast, the average wage rate in neighborhood casinos where our union density is only percent, was $.. Wage rates are $. per hour or percent higher in Strip jobs than in neighborhood casino jobs, just as union density is higher on the strip then in neighborhood casinos. To get a comparison of weighted average wages, we analyzed information from one non-union neighborhood casino, the Santa Fe Hotel and Casino, where our union is in negotiations with the company for a first contract covering 00 employees. Santa Fe Hotel's weighted average wage in our bargaining unit RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

5 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 classifications was $. per hour, not much higher than the average for hotel and restaurant workers in the United States. We also calculated what the weighted average wage would be if the Santa Fe were party to our union's collective bargaining agreement. Under a downtown contract, the weighted average wage for Santa Fe employees in our classifications would rise to $.. Figure illustrates the dramatic difference, $. per hour between pay in a non-union casino and pay for the same work in a union casino. For a Santa Fe Hotel worker average annual income would be over $,000 greater under our union contract or percent higher. The EPI analysis can also be used to compare the average hourly wage in Las Vegas, $., to that in Reno, $.. Whereas, our unions represent approximately percent of all employees in the Clark County gaming sector, HERE represents two percent of that sector in Reno. Figure shows the parallel between union density and annual income data published by the state. In, hotel gaming and recreation's average annual income in Clark County was $,00, while it was only $,00 in Marshall County. These data demonstrate the good -- that gaming jobs are better in Las Vegas where union density is much higher. To help make what I am arguing clear, I also compared average annual income in the retail sector where union density is low across the state. According to the Department of Employment, retail jobs in Clark County have grown faster than gaming jobs over the five-year period from to ', and RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

6 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 growth and income for retail workers has grown more slowly than in gaming. Moreover, for retail workers there is no income difference between working in Clark County and working in Reno. As illustrated in figure, average annual income for in the retail sector trailed gaming's annual income by $,000 in Las Vegas and by less than a $,000 in Reno. Health insurance and pension coverage was also better where union density is higher, as you can see in figure. Ninety-one percent of the casino workers covered by our collective bargaining agreements are eligible under the Union Welfare Fund for full family health coverage. According to the data from the Economic Policy Institute, percent of non-management hotel and restaurant workers in Las Vegas had health insurance. The preliminary results of a recent study commissioned by the Legislature shows similarly unimpressive levels of health insurance among average hotel-casino employees in Nevada. While percent of the total population in Nevada was covered continuously with health insurance, approximately percent of non-management hotel and gaming employees were. Not only do far more casino workers who are covered by union contracts have health insurance coverage, it is better coverage. Look at figure. According to the state study, out of those people with health coverage in the state, only 0 percent were covered for preventative medical services compared to 0 percent of those with our union insurance. Where 0 percent of workers covered by Union Welfare Fund have coverage RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

7 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 for dental care, including dental exams and treatment, only. percent of those covered in the state have coverage that pays for dental treatment. Moreover, casino workers who are covered by the Union Welfare Fund pay none of the premiums for family coverage. It is paid entirely by their employer. We do not know of another health insurance plan for non-management casino workers and their families in this state that does not require workers to pay for a portion of their premium costs. At the Santa Fe Casino workers who are eligible for insurance must pay $ per month for family coverage. At ARC restaurants, the largest subcontractor of food and beverage jobs on the Las Vegas Strip, health insurance coverage costs $ per month for family coverage, and that coverage only pays for percent of the cost of health care. As these facts show, casino jobs provide health insurance to a much higher percentage of workers when they are union jobs, as well as providing better quality health insurance. A similar case can be made about pension coverage. All employees in the union bargaining unit have contributions into a defined benefit retirement plan made on their behalf by their employer. By contrast, according to the EPI data, only percent of non-union hotel and restaurant employees in Las Vegas have pension coverage, as shown in figure. Important to note is that percent of those eligible under the Southern Nevada Culinary and Bartenders Pension Plan are fully invested. Higher RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

8 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting 0 than the percentage of non-union employees in Las Vegas who even have a pension coverage. Neither Santa Fe nor ARC, both non-union employers, offers employees in our bargaining unit participation in a defined benefit pension plan. Recently there has emerged a threat to this picture of good quality gaming jobs on the Las Vegas Strip, and that is the growing practice of subcontracting. Subcontracting is the practice of hiring other companies to provide certain services like restaurants and casinos so that those workers are no longer employed by the primary company. Las Vegas casinos are increasingly using subcontractors to provide food service, and it has the effect of lowering the wages and benefits for large groups of casino workers. One striking example is ARC Restaurants, the largest single subcontractor on the Las Vegas Strip. ARC employs approximately 00 workers who provide food service in a Strip casino. Unlike the good pay and benefit package that prevails on the Strip, ARC pays some of the lowest wages in the county, provides health insurance that is both costly and of poor quality, and does not provide retirement benefits. Figure demonstrates how substandard ARC jobs are. If this relatively recent but growing trend is not contained, restaurant jobs on the Las Vegas Strip will be no better than their counterparts in the rest of America, and we will quickly see the quality of all gaming jobs in Las Vegas eroded. To conclude, I believe the data I have presented demonstrates that gaming jobs in Nevada are better jobs in terms RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

9 November, N.G.I.S.C. Las Vegas Meeting of pay and access to health and pension benefits than their non-gaming counterparts in the rest of the country. Moreover, when gaming jobs are in a market influenced by strong union density, as they are in Las Vegas, the better quality associated with union gaming jobs contributes to a raised standard of living for all gaming employees. We believe that any examination of the economic impact of gaming needs to take job quality into account. The Las Vegas gaming industry has for the most part weighed in on the side of quality jobs. That is why we believe that Las Vegas is the best place in America for workers, and especially workers without a lot of formal education, to raise a family. Thank you for inviting me to testify. CHAIRPERSON JAMES: Thank you, Ms. Alexander. RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.