Merry Christmas Oaks Club Workers! Healthcare Costs Soar, Families Threatened

Workers Decry Wealth Transference at Oaks Club

Healthcare Charges Up 25% for Minimum Wage Workers

While Oaks President Takes Home $1.6 Million Salary

It appears that children of workers at the Oaks Club will have to go without Christmas presents this year.  That's because the owner of the card room, John Tibbetts, has jacked up by 25% the health insurance rates on his employees, many of whom earn the minimum wage and can't afford the rise says UNITE HERE local 2850, the workers' union representative.  The health care increase, an existential threat to non-management employees' families, drove approximately 40 workers to a protest march in front of the San Pablo Avenue card room on December 14th, where they entered the club to present the owner with the Worst Boss of the Year award for 2017.  Managers at the gambling outfit refused to take the award for Mr Tibbetts but they did threaten to call the police on the workers and Council member Scott Donahue who was witness.

About 40 workers and at least two City Council members
joined the picket line at Oaks Club on the 14th.
Councilman Donahue (center) was threatened with arrest
by managers.

The Oaks Club has not increased its contribution to its workers' health care since 2011 workers say and the recent 25% increase means workers now must pay more than $500 per month for family coverage.
The Oaks Club for its part earned $27 million in gross gaming revenue last year and John Tibbetts himself took home $1,662,784 in personal yearly salary alone, according to the City of Emeryville.  Profit taking is not included in that sum it was noted and so Mr Tibbetts likely took home considerably more than that amount.

The workers are demanding affordable health coverage in their new union contract.  “I make minimum wage. There’s no way I can afford to pay $500 a month for health care for me and my kids,” said Ricardo Vasquez.  “Our boss says we can just go on Obamacare—but Trump and Congress are trying to take away the subsidies we depend on. So, what are we supposed to do?” 

UNITE HERE local 2850 President Wei-Ling Huber agreed,  “Here in the Bay Area, we’re not going to let the most vulnerable people be denied life-saving health care. We need employers to step up and do their part. A multi-million dollar card club can afford to do that. A minimum-wage worker can’t.”

For its part, other than threatening to arrest the workers and Councilman Donahue, the Oaks Club management appears to be standing by the boss; manager Peter Schnieder told the Tattler, "I'm surprised Mr Tibbetts would qualify for that [worst boss] award.  I think he's a fair and thoughtful employer."

The 25% healthcare cost was increased "overnight" creating crisis in workers' families said UNITE HERE and the Oaks Club has offered no commitment to keeping the health insurance "even remotely affordable in the coming years."

Mr Tibbetts could not be reached for comment.

Oaks Club President John Tibbetts was
awarded this 'Worst Boss of 2017' trophy.
His managers refused to accept it but instead
threatened to call the police.

Workers Picket Oaks Card Room: No Contract, Low Wages, Unaffordable Healthcare

Workers assembled in front of the Oaks Club card room Wednesday to agitate for a contract that would increase wages and lower employee health care costs.  Unite Here 2850 organizers, a service workers union, noted the Oaks Club has not offered a contract to employees for several years and employees have to pay an ever escalating contribution for health insurance, now pegged at $533 per month for family coverage.  The protest drew some 75 picketers including Emeryville's newest Council members Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue who addressed the workers via the PA system, assuring the throng the City Council supports them and that the Council will deliver a city-wide minimum wage soon.  Protesters told the Tattler dishwashers at the Oaks Club make only $11.17 per hour. 

The Oaks Club has been in hot water with the law recently.  The card room, in business since the 1890's, has recently been the site of  FBI stings for loan sharking and money laundering.  
Even though the gambling establishment has famously attracted a criminal element to Emeryville, the Oaks has for years paid very little by way of taxes to the City.  In a move to rectify that, in 1997, Emeryville voters overwhelmingly passed Measure B which increased the gross receipts tax on the Oaks Club to 9% from 6.5 %.  The increase however still left the Oaks with a lower municipal tax than any other card room in the Bay Area (which charge up to 13%).  Measure B was hotly contested and the owner of the Oaks Club, John Tibbetts told voters before the election, the proposed card room tax increase would likely drive him out of business, forcing him to fire all his employees and close down his 100 year Emeryville family run business.  The tax increase for the Oaks passed by 63% of Emeryville voters needing only at least 50%.

Campaign Donation: Quid Pro Quo?
The current labor strife has been brewing for several months and Council members Martinez and Donahue interceded on behalf of the workers recently in a meeting between Oaks Club managers and workers the two new Council members report.  Councilman Donahue noted a manager at that meeting asked incredulously and overtly why he and Ms Martinez were siding with the workers since Oaks Club owner John Tibbetts had donated money to the two Council member's election campaigns in November.  

Emeryville Becomes a National Model for Social Justice

Los Angeles Looks to Emeryville

for Inspiration

News Analysis
Ten years ago, two opposing forces in Emeryville began gearing up for an epic battle that would culminate in a November election, testing the voter's will for social justice.  That election battle, Measure C, also known as the 'living wage for Emeryville hotel workers', resulted in the first industry specific minimum wage law in California history.  And it's been hugely influential as municipalities across the West Coast and the Nation start looking to Emeryville's lead.
After two unsuccessful lawsuits were brought challenging the new law, Measure C has moved on, as it was designed to, providing Emeryville hotel housekeepers with significant wage increases and other benefits while also serving as impetuous for similar such laws protecting hotel workers in other cities such as Long Beach in 2012 and Los Angeles in 2014.  Seattle and nearby Sea Tac Washington used the Long Beach and Los Angeles law as a model for their respective city-wide minimum wage laws recently passed.

EBASE's
Jennifer Lin
"Emeryville has
been very
influential."

Measure C comports Emeryville's values but it also has shown the Nation as a whole how cities can serve as loci for their community's values.
"Other cities are looking at what happened in Emeryville, with increased worker wages that ripple to the rest of the economy" said Jennifer Lin, Deputy Director at East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), a local community organization working for economic justice issues for working families, "Emeryville's been very influential" she added.  EBASE's efforts and the efforts of UNITE HERE-Local 2850 in 2005 were essential to getting Measure C before Emeryville voters.
Ms Lin noted that Emeryville, despite its small size, shines as an inspiration to other, larger cities, "Living wages for hotel workers caught on with other cities...they took the Emeryville model and scaled it up" she said.

This is What Democracy Looks Like
Post Measure C Victory: Woodfin fight 
The battle at the ballot box was only the first; one
law breaking hotel sought to subvert Emeryville
voter's will.  Near daily protests were conducted
 at the Woodfin Suites Hotel.

An easy win at the ballot box for Measure C belied the opposition's tenacity and apocalyptic rhetoric.  The fight for the Measure was fierce and battle lines were drawn, with nine out of ten elected officials in Emeryville warning of a massive economic calamity if the Measure were to pass.  Residents weren't impressed with that argument and Measure C won with 54% of the vote despite a mountain of cash thrown at it from the NO side to see it defeated.  Living wages are very popular with Emeryville residents we've found out.

The NO on Measure C side called itself the "Committee to Keep Tax Dollars in Emeryville" (as in; hotels will flee Emeryville if this passes) raised and spent $115,000, a huge amount for an Emeryville election ($110 for each NO vote as it turned out).  The funding came almost entirely from the hotels and the Chamber of Commerce, who put up everything they had against the ordinance.  Residents were told the sky would fall if Measure C passed; the Emeryville hospitality industry would be wiped out, sending the town's finances into a tailspin they said.  'It's not for a lack of caring, everyone wants higher pay for the working poor but we have to be realistic', the voters were told.
In fact the opposite has occurred over the proceeding ten years; all the hotels from 2005 (except Woodfin was bought out by Hyatt) are still here and a new hotel has even been approved.  The number of Emeryville hotels has gone from four to five since Measure C passed.

John Gooding
He consolidated the
Power Elite in town.
Hotels will leave
Emeryville en masse
if Measure C is passed,
all will be lost!

As the people voted YES on the living wage ordinance, virtually the entire Emeryville Power Elite rallied against it.
Emeryville political power broker and business lobbyist John Gooding took a leadership role in attempting to defeat Measure C.  Mr Gooding joined with the Chamber of Commerce and convinced the entire Emeryville City Council (save Ruth Atkin) to sign their names to the NO side as well as the entire Planning Commission and the entire School Board.

2005 was also a City Council election year and candidates Dick Kassis (incumbent) and his slate mate, Ed Treuting  both conspicuously ran on an anti-Measure C platform while challenger John Fricke endorsed Measure C as part of his platform.  Some election watchers claim that support for a living wage is what gave Mr Fricke the edge he needed to decisively win his election bid as he did.
The debate was heated and Councilwoman Nora Davis went as far as calling Emeryville residents that spoke out in favor of Measure C "dupes for EBASE", a charge she may have wished to take back after the 54% of Emeryville residents said YES to living wages for our town.

Emeryville's Influence:
Less this...

Measure C delivered the goods: In the first five years there were $1.168 million in wage increases for the workers according to a study conducted by EBASE.  Many workers were able to survive on their own and support their families without government assistance after the Measure C passage while the hotels were found to have their costs increase less than 2%.  Many workers got pay increases of up to $5 per hour, translating into an extra $5000 per year to help families make ends meet. Over 100 workers were helped in the new law's first year alone.

...more this.

It's ironic that the politicians at Emeryville City Hall and at the Emery Unified School District, the same bodies that railed against Measure C in 2005 have long boasted about how Emeryville is becoming a national model.  It is clear they are correct, but not in the way they think.  Emeryville's influence is not being felt in terms of schools as community centers as a result of the construction of the Emeryville Center of 'Community' Life as these people would have you believe but rather in labor relations, social justice and the rise of minimum wage law.

As the 10 year anniversary approaches, Emeryville residents would be excused if they felt a little civic pride in the prescience of our very influential landmark minimum wage ordinance: Measure C.
We rock (editorial).

Living Wages for Hotel Workers Started in Emeryville

Now it's Taking Off Everywhere

Here's a source of real Emeryville civic pride: After retaliatory firing of workers, 

the workers successfully forced the Woodfin Suites Hotel to pay their back wages as 

mandated by Measure C.  After the Emeryville Power Elite including the City Council, 

lost their battle against Measure C at the ballot box, City Hall implemented the 

new law, forcing the Woodfin fight.
Wage increases for the working poor among us is the will of the people of Emeryville.