Union Accuses SugarHouse of Spying On Organizers With Surveillance Cameras

The waterfront casino says the allegation is absolutely untrue.

The Unite Here Local 54 union has been working for years to unionize casino workers at SugarHouse, the gambling hall that opened in 2010 on Philadelphia’s waterfront. And now that union is accusing SugarHouse of using the casino’s surveillance system to spy on pro-union employees.

The union made the allegations in a complaint it filed with the National Labor Relations Board. The complaint was originally filed in November but only recently came to light.

The complaint alleges that SugarHouse violated the National Labor Relations Act by having its security officers “engage in surveillance of union committee persons while they were working and while they were not working.” The union says the surveillance occurred between 2011 and 2014.

Then last month, the union filed another complaint with the NLRB, alleging that SugarHouse illegally disciplined employees associated with the union thanks to their union activities.

SugarHouse has previously denied the surveillance allegations. As for the charges of retaliatory discipline, the casino declined to comment, instead sending Philadelphia magazine the following statement from SugarHouse General Manager Wendy Hamilton: “This is America and our employees get to decide this for themselves. We’re proud and humbled that the SugarHouse team has not chosen outside representation. We’re a close-knit group, and we’re doing great things together.”

A representative of the NLRB confirms that multiple investigations are ongoing. The complaints are among several filed by the union in recent years.

Meanwhile, Unite Here has started a billboard campaign with an advertisement at a SEPTA station near the casino. The ad is titled “We Work Hard, We Deserve Better” and features a SugarHouse cook’s testimonial:

I get up every day to go to work. I come home and take care of my daughter. And I’ll do it again tomorrow with a smile on my face. But we deserve better.

The union has been trying to organize at SugarHouse since shortly after the casino debuted. The pro-union employees say that healthcare is too expensive, wages are too low, the attendance policy is too strict, and that some managers bully employees. SugarHouse has worked for years with New Jersey-based anti-union casino consultant Kulture in an effort to suppress the union, and documents filed with the Department of Labor confirm that Kulture representatives have met with SugarHouse employees .

But clearly not all SugarHouse employees think that the casino is a bad place to work. The union has only succeeded in getting a tiny fraction of employees — less than two percent of full-time SugarHouse staffers — to work with it to unionize the casino. Naturally, organizers say that’s because the employees are afraid of what SugarHouse will do if employees are fingered as union sympathizers.

And then there’s this: SugarHouse has won all sorts of “Best Places to Work Awards,” including from the Philadelphia Business Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Those awards are based on employee surveys.

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