Foxwoods maintenance workers file petition for union votes

Boston-based group seeks to represent over 300 casino employees

“It’s raises, respect and dignity, and having a voice.” FOXWOODS RESORT CASINO WORKER CELESTE COSTA

Mashantucket — A union that’s been organizing maintenance and cleaning staff at Foxwoods Resort Casino petitioned this week for an election, a union official said Friday.

The Boston-based New England Joint Board of Unite Here is seeking to represent more than 300 employees of Foxwoods’ Environmental Services Department, which is responsible for cleaning much of the casino, though not hotel rooms, said Ethan Snow, the union’s chief of staff.

“These are the people who do the vacuuming, the dusting, laundry, empty the trash — the whole nine yards,” he said.

A Foxwoods spokeswoman, Ashley Polo, confirmed that the petition had been filed.

“Foxwoods Resort Casino complies with all Mashantucket Pequot Tribal laws,” she wrote in an email. “A pe-

tition has been filed by Unite Here and Foxwoods will cooperate with the legal process.”

The Mashantuckets own Foxwoods.

Polo also confirmed that a union representing workers in Foxwoods’ Engineering Department, Local 30 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, has petitioned for an election to add slot-machine technicians. The union now includes carpenters, carpet and tile installers, electricians, HVAC technicians, locksmiths, painters, plumbers and upholsterers.

Environmental Services Department employees approached the New England Joint Board of Unite Here about a year ago, primarily out of concerns about pay and treatment by management, one worker said.

“It’s raises, respect and dignity, and having a voice,” said Celeste Costa, whose job involves supply recycling and grounds.

Costa, 53, of Bradford, R.I., said she’s worked at Foxwoods for 21 years, her hourly rate of pay increasing in that time from $7.50 to $14.03. She said workers got 2 percent raises last year after going five years without a raise.

She said workers — many of them Chinese, Haitian and Filipino immigrants — were alarmed last fall when Foxwoods outsourced management of another department.

“The rumor was we were next,” she said.

In 2016, Foxwoods’ Environmental Services Department received an American Business Award known as a “Stevie” for its performance the previous year. The department was cited for its daily upkeep of the more than 9-million-squarefoot casino, cleaning “over 30 restaurants, 100 retail stores, two theaters, six casino public bathrooms, executive offices, seven outside tribally-owned properties, the exterior of all buildings and much more.”

Under Mashantucket Pequot tribal law, more than 30 percent of the employees eligible to form a bargaining unit must sign authorization cards to petition for an election. In the election, the union is recognized if a majority of voters favor affiliation.

The Mashantuckets enacted their labor law nearly a decade ago in the wake of the United Auto Workers’ effort to organize table-games dealers at Foxwoods. Subsequent contract negotiations between the tribe and Local 2121 of the UAW have been conducted under the law, and tribal and casino employees have since affiliated with three other unions.

In addition to the 1,400 dealers represented by Local 2121, more than 200 Engineering Department employees are affiliated with Local 30 of the IUOE and more than 270 beverage servers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. More than two-dozen members of the Mashantucket Pequot tribal fire department are affiliated with the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The New England Joint Board of Unite Here represents about 10,000 workers throughout New England and New York.