Dealers File Complaint Against Wynn Las Vegas

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Dealers File Complaint Against Wynn Las Vegas

KLAS TV
Melissa Duran, Reporter
Sep 11, 2006 06:59 PM EDT

Dozens of Wynn Las Vegas dealers say they're being cheated out of their tips and they say they are going to fight a management plan to make them share with supervisors.

It's a fight that could eventually have an effect on other properties. Many of those dealers at the Wynn Las Vegas say it's just not fair to have part of their tips given to their supervisors.

Those tips are the majority of their income, and dealers say they have no choice but to fight to get that money back. One at a time, more than 100 Wynn Las Vegas dealers walked into the office of the labor commissioner to file a complaint against their boss.

"At $6.15 an hour, I need those tips to survive, that pays my mortgage, buys my food, puts diapers on my kid, makes the car payment. Everything is tips," said one dealer.

The dealers who want to remain anonymous, say part of those tips are being given to their supervisors leaving them with a 15-percent loss in income.

"The more pieces of paper we can drop off here, maybe the more they'll listen to us and look into it a little bit deeper than what they've been doing," said another dealer.

But Wynn management says they're following the law 100-percent. The new tipping pool change is just part of a restructuring plan.

"We eliminated the supervisory position and pit managers position and what we recognize is that the people or these team leaders that are working with the dealers, help to service the guests just as dealer does," said Andrew Pascal, Wynn Las Vegas president.

Pascal says that entitles these leaders to part of the tips. "Before we instituted this change, dealers were getting in the neighborhood of $88,000, after this change, their gratuities will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $77,000."

Backlash was expected. But Pascal says the dealers are still being fairly compensated.

"He's just literally reached into our pockets and taken that away from us," said one dealer.

They say they'll continue to march into as many offices as it takes to fight for what they feel is rightfully theirs. Two key staff members from the office of the labor commissioner came out to the Wynn last week to get a better understanding of how the new tip pool works.

The labor commissioner will decide if the employer is being fair to the dealers, but there's no determination when that decision will be reached.