Unite Here Calls for Strict Health and Sanitation Guidelines Before Reopening Casinos

The union representing casino and hospitality workers wants to ensure the safety of its members and casino guests when gaming resumes.

As governors and state officials develop plans to restart parts of the economy, the union representing gaming and hospitality workers wants to ensure the health of its members, their families and casino guests when the gaming facilities reopen.

"We desperately want to go back to work," said Unite Here international president D. Taylor in a teleconference. "No body of workers has been more affected by the coronavirus and loss of jobs than Unite Here. Every part of our industry has been hit: casinos closed, hotels closed, stadiums closed, arenas closed, industrial cafeterias closed. We want to go back to work, but we want to go back to work in a safe environment where we're not viewed as rats in a lab, like some politicians are trying to put us in. There can be no shortcuts."

Taylor referred to the comments of Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman. During a televised interview, she had offered to open the city "as a control group" while the state of Nevada remained shut down for social-distancing concerns. "We can't rely on examples of politicians like that," Taylor said. Instead, "the gaming control boards in every state can determine when somebody opens and how they open and function."

After consulting with health-care professionals and industrial hygienists and incorporating guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unite Here has issued comprehensive health and sanitation guidelines with several principles in mind:

• Prevention: All workers should be tested for COVID-19, as well as for antibodies when those tests are available, and both workers and guests should be screened with temperature checks upon entry to the casinos.
• Protection: Personal protective equipment should be made widely available to both workers and guests, and distancing measures must be established and enforced.
• Enhanced cleaning: Cleaning protocols that adhere to the standards of the CDC must be established and mandated. "We have to live up to CDC standards, not some standards somebody else wrote," said Taylor. "And it needs to happen in public areas, in guest rooms, in the kitchens -- top to bottom. And workers have to be given enough time to do the enhanced cleaning, and their training should be mandatory."
• Implementation and enforcement: Detailed protocols that are unique to each venue must be established, with clear lines of authority, accountability and monitoring. Joint labor-management health and safety committees should be created. "We can't rely on some governments, agencies and companies that may only give lip service about the care for workers and guests," said Taylor. "These protocols must be enforced."

Taylor underscored the need for gaming control boards to be involved in the enforcement of these guidelines. "There are certain standards you have to live up to in order to open up as a gaming facility, and that the state has always mandated," he said. "We don't think that should be any different on this reopening. We are quite concerned that some bad actors who really don't follow the kind of public health guidelines we're laying out will create a coronavirus hotspot in that town, which will devastate the business in that town and the industry that we rely on. Because if a coronavirus hotspot hits one casino in a town, it's not just that casino that's affected; it's the whole town. That hurts all the workers, which hurts the industry and hurts the states that rely on that tax revenue."

Taylor praised companies such as Wynn Resorts for issuing extensive, detailed reopening guidelines to the public. But Unite Here wants to take it one step further, he said, to require measures such as testing for every worker and to ensure that the guidelines are universally followed and enforced. The full guidelines may be found here.

Source: Northstarmeetingsgroup.com