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Gaming expansion focuses on Asia

Published: 25 June 2008
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UNI Gaming group photo

 Stepping up cooperation between unions in UNI Gaming global union was agreed as the fast growing industry focuses expansion on Asia.



There was a call from Malaysian affiliate RWEU for an international union card to help highly mobile gaming workers as they move across borders in their careers.


Gaming trade unions from across the world also agreed to work together to tackle on-line gambling - which threatens jobs, creates new revenue that’s not always shared with the workers it depends upon and creates problems of unmonitored, addictive gambling.



Macau has become the world’s biggest gambling centre with the biggest casino in the world - the Sands Venetian Macau that has 700 gaming tables on a single floor.



By 2010 it’s estimated that Las Vegas-based Sands will derive 89% of its profits from Macau and Las Vegas-based Wynn - which has one casino in Macau already and another under construction - will derive 60% from Macau by the same date.



Deutsche Bank predicts that $32bn will be invested in the Asian gaming market between 2004 and 2010 - 70% of it in Macau.



Singapore has given the go ahead for two big casinos - one run by Sands and the other by Genting of Malaysia.



In countries where gambling has been strictly controlled through state monopolies - particularly in Europe - there is growing pressure to break up the monopolies. And the multinationals are interested in moving into new countries like Japan (where pachinko* currently dominates) if they too ease strict gambling laws.


In Australia 200,000 “pokies” (poker machines) dominate the gaming industry but 13 casinos employ 18,000 workers and generate more than A$3bn annual revenue and there are strict controls on Internet gambling, reported Matthew Gardiner, from LHMU.
Co-presidents Robert Vijendran Henry and Pieter Heinink


One of the attractions for governments to open up the gaming sector is the lucrative tax income that new casinos generate - in Australia 24%-67% of revenue goes in taxes (depending on the State).



For unions the challenge is to ensure that jobs in the new centres are unionised and that liberalisation and online gambling do not undermine existing jobs and effective regulations to beat corruption and money laundering and to help gamblers with an addiction problem.



UNI has opened a development office in Hong Kong and has been in discussion with unions in Macau to step up organising there.




Top table: Juliet Cimler, Pieter Heinink, Alke Boessiger and Philip Bowyer
 “Gaming is probably the fastest growing sector in UNI and like in other industries we have to work together to ensure that unionised and well paid jobs are defended and labour rights secured in the newly developing resorts,” said UNI Deputy General Secretary Philip Bowyer. “Global agreements with these gaming multinationals could play an important role in ensuring dialogue and effective collective bargaining.”


In La Vegas unions have collective agreements with Harrah’s (recently bought by private equity and moving into Spain with 7,000 new jobs), MGM Mirage (also with a casino in Macau) and Wynn Resorts, reported Ginny Coughlin from UNITE HERE. Sands is anti-union around the world but forced to pay competitive rates in Las Vegas.


It’s the Las Vegas model that’s being exported around the world - large casino resorts with their own hotels.



“We believe that the Las Vegas model and Las Vegas companies - and others like PBL Australia - are going to expand dramatically in the coming years,” Ginny told the UNI Gaming meeting in Nyon, Switzerland. “Casino employment will increase dramatically around the globe with a huge number of workers under the same employer.”


Ginny Coughlin


Lithuanian union LPSDPS signed its first collective agreement with Olympic casinos in 2006 and plans to help organising in new casinos as that company expands into other Baltic states, said Andrej Lipa.



The meeting called for greater exchange of information and the building of a UNI Gaming database along with global and regional networking and solidarity. The growing interest of private equity in the sector also prompted calls for research.



Unions attending came from Argentina, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, Spain and the USA.




Workshop group enjoys the Nyon weather
 A small working group was agreed to draw up a common position on online gambling - unrestricted in some countries but banned in countries like the United States and Germany.


The state owned Holland Casino has been held up by parliamentarians in its plan to launch an online casino, reported Pieter Heinink of Vakbond ABC, Netherlands who chaired the meeting.



Mobile phone gambling is also a looming development, said Bernhard Stracke from ver.di Germany, which strongly supported the legal ban on on-line gambling there. “The risk of addiction is huge and there is no protection for youngsters,” said Bernhard.



“This is a real threat, a real risk for all our countries,” said Miguel Rodriguez Gomez of FECHTJ-UGT Spain.



In a move that reflects the global nature of the industry the meeting appointed Co-Presidents Pieter Heinink from the Netherlands and Robert Vijendran Henry from RWEU, Malaysia - and two Vice Presidents Daniel Amoroso of ALEARA Argentina and Pilar Rato Rodriguez of FECOHT-CC.OO Spain.



* UNI’s Tokyo office defines pachinko as: a type of gambling like a slot machine, but using small balls. The aim is to get as many balls into the holes as possible. The prize is “secretly” convertible - but everyone knows where to convert the prize into money!