Langley Cascade Casino’s Watchdog Gets Union Certification With Moveup
Moveup, a labor union representing members of Western Canada’s public and private sector companies, provided union certification to surveillance staff at the cascade casino in Langley. The move is considered part of the biggest major trend in British Columbia’s gambling sector, where workers’ unions have gained popularity in the casino industry despite facing certain challenges in other business sectors.
Cascades Casino’s certification follows a two-month worker strike at Coquitlam-based Hard Rock Casino. Eventually, the latter ended with the ratification of the first collective agreement between the Great Canadian Games Corporation and casino workers’ representatives. A narrow majority of the 400 members of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) agreed to the agreement, which provided them with a hopeful wage increase.
The employees of Hard Rock Casino became members of the union two years ago. Since then, a trend has been registered in British Columbia, where both the number and proportion of employees in the casino industry become unionized. At the same time, the opposite trend has been seen in Canada for some time.
The union certification of the surveillance staff at Langley’s Cascade Casino is a bit strange. The problem is that surveillance operators cannot belong to the same union as other casino employees because of possible conflicts of interest. For the time being, Langley’s Cascade Casino has 14 watchmen. 슬롯사이트
British Columbia, labor unions surge in popularity unlike other parts of Canada
According to some data StarMetro received from Statistics Canada, there were 2,200 union members working in the British Columbia gambling sector. This figure represents about 26% of the gambling industry workers in the province at the time. Two years later, in 2016, a total of 32% of gambling industry workers in the province were qualified as union members. The rate increased to 46 percent.
As mentioned above, things are somewhat different in the rest of Canada. For the time being, about 30% of the country’s total staff in its territory is unionized, and that figure now faces a significant decline for at least two decades.
Paul Finch, BCGEU’s treasurer, said that while workers’ unions are struggling to retain union members, the casino and gambling industries are now areas where these unions can help large groups of workers who share one job. Currently, BCGEU is responsible for the majority of union casino employees in British Columbia.
According to Finch, unions offer casino workers the opportunity to protect their interests well from potentially greedy employers. He noted that employees at British Columbia casinos have historically been paid lower than those in the rest of Canada. In his opinion, the labor union became very popular, coupled with the fact that the state’s cost of living was relatively high.