Wynn Resorts agrees to Pay Dealers 5.6M Dollars to Resolve 15-Year Feud Over Tips(Image Source – https://pixabay.com/photos/dollars-currency-money-us-dollars-499481/)
For the past fifteen years, there has been a dispute between Wynn Resorts and their dealers. The dispute is about tips and it has lingered in court for a long time.
The dispute has now come to an end since Wynn Resort has agreed to refund 5.6 million dollars to approximately 1, 000 former and current dealers of the company.
A help mediator helped to reach this new dispute settlement between Wynn Resorts and their dealers. The settlement was finally signed off by Andrew Godson, the District Judge on Friday.
The dispute centered on the dealers’ belief that Wynn Resort dealt them a lousy hand when they changed the tipping policy in 2006. According to Steve Wynn, the CEO and Chairman of Wynn Resorts, the tipping policy for dealers was changed in 2006 shortly after they opened Wynn Las Vegas.
The dealers also confirmed this, saying that Steve formulated and enacted a new policy that saw the tip pool being shared with team leaders.
Raw Deal for Some Staff
At that time, Wynn Las Vegas just began operation and they had created the ‘casino team leads’ position by combining pit bosses and floor supervisors into a single role.
However, team leaders usually receive less pay than dealers because leaders get tips from customers. Wynn was worried that this situation will discourage people to grow in rank.
On the other hand, dealers argued that Wynn Resorts should have simply increased the team leader’s wages instead of tampering with their tips.
The only casino operator that shares tip pools with non-tipped workers is Wynn Resorts. This controversial policy reserved 12 percent of the tip pool for team leaders.
So, the dealers sued Wynn Resorts after they felt cheated. The suit was to recover as much as 50 million dollars they have lost since the new policy began.
Fortunately for the dealer, the Obama administration approved a law that barred companies from sharing tips with non-tipped staff when they proscribed it as illegal in 2011.
This new law made the dealers revive the case in a Federal court. But, they would again be disappointed when the case was turned down again. So, they proceeded to the appeal court where they eventually recorded success.
Wynn Resort would not give up as they tried to take the matter to the Supreme Court, but the latter would not hear the case.
Surprisingly, the Trump administration revoked the Obama administration rules, so SCOTUS used the opportunity to kick the lawsuit back to the district court for a fresh hearing in 2018.
New Tipping Rules
The new tipping rules by the Trump administration made it legal for employees that hitherto didn’t receive tips to start getting a share of the tip pool.
However, this rule was subject to companies paying employees the full minimum wage. The rule also outlawed sharing of employee gratuities with supervisors.
Steve Wynn resigned as the CEO and Chairman of Wynn Resorts in 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct. He was succeeded by Matt Maddox who quickly sought to lay the dispute to rest by increasing the salaries of both dealers and team leaders.
This new settlement agreement includes attorney fees that have piled up to $1,4 million over the years.
According to LVRJ, each of the estimated former and current dealers will receive around $4170. It does not look sufficient because some dealers had argued that they were entitled to $100,000. So the settlement is just the tip of the iceberg.
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