Fabian Nunez’s ascension to Speaker of the California Assembly was seen as a landmark achievement for the state’s Latino-labor alliance, and for progressive interests. But with his three-terms in the Assembly ending in 2008, Nunez has apparently decided to sacrifice his longstanding commitment to progressive principles in order to help passage of a February 2008 ballot initiative that would give him three additional terms. Last week, Nunez dropped his longstanding opposition to new casino compacts for Southern California Indian tribes, despite the tribes’ refusal to facilitate union organizing. Having been elected to the Assembly as a strong labor ally, Nunez has now betrayed the labor movement so that he can potentially have three additional terms as Speaker.

Late last week, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez betrayed the hotel workers union, UNITEHERE, in order to prevent wealthy Indian tribes from spending millions to defeat a term-limit extension ballot initiative in February. Nunez had long held up the Governor’s plans to dramatically expand Indian gaming until the tribes agreed to card-check neutrality, but made a sudden about-face last week that shocked and angered his labor allies.

Jack Gribbon, a longtime fixture with San Francisco’s UNITEHERE Local 2 who is now state political director for the union, said his group was “outraged” by Nunez’s move. “For the speaker to say he is some kind of big hero, like he fixed something---he knows he didn’t," said Gribbon. "We know he didn’t. The voters are going to figure it out.”

Gribbon’s last reference is to a proposed referendum to overturn the new gaming compacts. The union would have no difficulty collecting the 434,000 signatures, and the presence of the initiative on the February 2008 ballot could help defeat the term-limits extension that motivated Nunez’s action.

The last thing Nunez wants is a massive labor turnout to overturn gaming compacts that he backed. Voters brought to the polls to vote for the initiative will not be supporting an initiative to extend the term of the Speaker who enabled the compacts to become law.

Gribbon noted that the gaming tribes involved in the compact have used surveillance cameras to spy on workers meeting with union officials. Given the tribes' hostility toward unions, it was only logical that an agreement expanding gambling would be conditioned upon the tribes accepting card check neutrality (which allows workers to form a union without a time-consuming and employer-influenced secret ballot election).

It was Nunez’s fear that the tribes would mount a heavily-funded anti-initiative campaign in February that led him to agree to the 23-year compacts. While the state estimates the new compacts will bring in $1 million a day in public funds, the four Indian tribes affected by the gambling expansion will make billions of dollars in profits. Senator Gil Cedillo was one of many legislators who wondered why with all of this money, the wealthy tribes feel “threatened by labor contracts.”

While Nunez and other legislative leaders seek a revision of the term limits law to extend their political careers, it should not be done at the expense of the values that brought them into politics. UNITEHERE has been a steadfast ally of progressive causes in California, and handing the union a major defeat so that Nunez and others can extend their careers is self-defeating.

Many activists and groups were supportive of the term-limits extension initiative precisely because it would give a strong labor ally (Nunez) six more years as Speaker. But if labor thought they had an Assembly leader who would protect their interests, that opinion of Nunez has clearly been shaken.

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