According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the strikes in Atlantic City are looking like a David and Goliath type of thing--or at least, that's how some are positioning it.
- It is the struggle of the $8-an-hour workers versus the multibillion-dollar casino industry that is being played out in the streets, meeting rooms and gaming floors of this gambling mecca.
It is a war of words, picketing civil disobedience, and a blitz of newspaper and radio ads. The casino strategy is to claim the strike has had no effect on its business and that it will hold out until the union agrees to a five-year pact. Local 54 of Unite Here counters that its members -- the 10,000 service industry workers who make beds, serve drinks, clean restrooms, and perform other jobs at seven of Atlantic City's 12 casinos -- will not return to work until they have a three-year contract that will bring them in line with unionized gaming workers in other states...
"I think it's very clever on the part of the union to use this tactic of pitting itself against the huge, corporate gaming structures," said Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "It's really a new and noteworthy development in labor disputes. The big corporate giant against the little working person is a hot-button issue right now. And that's something that a lot of people, in any industry, union or nonunion, can relate to."
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