Wednesday, Aug. 13, 1997 | 9:08 a.m.
Four Queens cooks, food servers, maids and porters have accepted the contract proposal negotiated between the hotel and the Culinary Union.
Of the 124 workers who voted Tuesday upstairs at the union hall on Commerce Street, only two voted against having Culinary Union Local 226 represent them.
Tuesday's vote was long in coming for the Culinary Union, and the first in a current round of city-wide negotiations between the labor organization and hotels in handling thousands of workers' health and welfare plans, pensions and grievance procedures.
The Four Queens has been nonunion since 1985 when discontented workers collectively decided after a 15-month strike that they no longer wanted its representation.
Other casinos also voting out the union more than a decade ago were the Aladdin, Holiday, California, and Sam's Town.
"It's very exciting," said an ecstatic Jim Arnold, Culinary executive officer. "It took 13 years to correct a mistake."
In April, 465 Four Queens workers appealed to go back with the union and won the right to have the card-check agreement held Tuesday where an independent body counted the stack of 124 cards workers had signed formally authorizing their decisions.
The victory was especially sweet, Arnold said, because Four Queens management is cooperating with its workers and allowing the union to take over -- unlike the Santa Fe hotel-casino, which has fought the union for several years, forcing its workers to take their case to the National Labor Relations Board.
"I applaud the management of the Four Queens for permitting the workers a card-check," Arnold said. "It has been a very exciting day."
