Just to get back for a moment to the battle between UNITEHERE and CWA over the California casinos. So, the underlying mystery here has been: is it true that CWA president Morty Bahr promised John Wilhelm, back when he was president of HERE, that CWA recognized HERE’s absolute right to organize the casino workers and that CWA would stay out of that organizing effort?

Well, I’ve got the letter (JPG file) now that makes it pretty clear that Bahr did, in fact, make such a promise on March 1, 2004. When you write, “CWA recognizes HERE’s exclusive jurisdiction over the California tribal gaming industry granted by the AFL-CIO, which CWA supports,” there isn’t much equivocation.

And, anyway,I don’t get why CWA–which bills itself as “the union for the information age and has to organize an entirely non-union computer industry, a largely non-union cable industry and an increasingly non-union wireless industry–has any reason to waste time on casinos.

I’ve sent the following message to Morty Bahr:

Dear Brother Bahr:

This morning I posted on Working Life’s blog a March 1, 2004 letter from you to John Wilhelm asserting CWA’s recognition of the exclusive recognition of the jurisdiction of HERE (now UNITEHERE) in the California tribal gaming industry. The context of the letter, and the interest of the readers of Working Life, is the on-going dispute between CWA and UNITEHERE over that jurisdiction. I would be happy to post any explanation you would like to give to the dispute in light of the letter.

Solidarity,

Jonathan Tasini