Casino women : courageous in unexpected places / Susan Chandler and Jill B. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chandler, Susan Kerr.

Contributor:

Jones, Jill B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Casinos--Nevada--Employees.

Casinos.

Gambling industry--Nevada--Employees.

Gambling industry.

Women service industries workers--Nevada.

Women service industries workers.

Employee rights--Nevada.

Employee rights.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (240 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : ILR Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Casino Women is a pioneering look at the female face of corporate gaming. Based on extended interviews with maids, cocktail waitresses, cooks, laundry workers, dealers, pit bosses, managers, and vice presidents, the book describes in compelling detail a world whose enormous profitability is dependent on the labor of women assigned stereotypically female occupations-making beds and serving food on the one hand and providing sexual allure on the other. But behind the neon lies another world, peopled by thousands of remarkable women who assert their humanity in the face of gaming empires' relentless quest for profits. The casino women profiled here generally fall into two groups. Geoconda Arguello Kline, typical of the first, arrived in the United States in the 1980's fleeing the war in Nicaragua. Finding work as a Las Vegas hotel maid, she overcame her initial fear of organizing and joined with others to build the preeminent grassroots union in the nation-the 60,000-member Culinary Union-becoming in time its president. In Las Vegas, "the hottest union city in America," the collective actions of union activists have won economic and political power for tens of thousands of working Nevadans and their families. The story of these women's transformation and their success in creating a union able to face off against global gaming giants form the centerpiece of this book. Another group of women, dealers and middle managers among them, did not act. Fearful of losing their jobs, they remained silent, declining to speak out when others were abused, and in the case of middle managers, taking on the corporations' goals as their own. Susan Chandler and Jill B. Jones appraise the cost of their silence and examine the factors that pushed some women into activism and led others to accept the status quo. Casino Women will appeal to all readers interested in women, gambling, and working-class life, and in how ordinary people stand up to corporate actors who appear to hold all the cards.

Contents:

You have to do it for the people coming

They're treating us like donkeys, really : housekeeping and other back of the house work

Kiss my foot : cocktail waitressing

I'll always love the union

Here's my heart

Darlene Jespersen v. Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.

Liberation theology, pit boss style

Dealing : the view from dead center

Stuck

Big tobacco rides the strip

Crossing over to the other side.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780801462702

0801462703

9780801462696

080146269X

OCLC:

773879088