CONCLUSION

The working environment for casino gaming ichanging from a patronage-based system toone dependent on standardized procedure,objective evaluation, and bureaucratic or-ganization. The charisma of gaming leader-ship and the authority of a traditional family-based enterprise are being replaced, inthe Weberian sense, by bureaucratic controlEmployees whose job depended on personal re<lations with one of the charismatic or fam-ily leaders are nervous about their job se-curity because they have not had to face amerit review previously. Those who advocat-ed objective criteria of evaluation are al-so insecure because the new systems are notentrenched and they could still be firedfor union activity or any other behaviorthat challenges traditional authority.Thus, the gaming industry represents a"transition" segment of the casino economy.It is rare that we get a chance to observethe evolution of managerial climate withinan industrial sector.

This transformation will make jobs in gam-bling settings even more unattractive thanthey currently are. The rationalization ofwork under the corporate, bureaucratic con-trol situation will depersonalize manage-ment -employee relations; it will organizework in such a manner that routinizationand robot-like behavior will be dominantcharacteristics; and, unionization activ-ity will increase as workers realize thatit will be necessary to organize in orderto have equitable resources in a conflict Iwith large parent corporate owners. In Iaddition, a feminization of the labor forcewill take place. Traditionally, women havetended to occupy the lowest-paid, mosttedious, and least challenging jobs in anorganization (Sullivan 1978) This trendhas been observed, and it can be estimatedthat over half of the dealers are women.Some casino managers say this is because"women have thinner hands and can handlecards better" (Interview). Dexterity isnot the reason for more women in dealingpositions; it is because women will workfor less money in unattractive jobs.

Finally, job stress is rampant in the in-dustry. The stress is associated withboredom, low job autonomy, close super-vision, arbitrary treatment, and low jobsecurity. Summary data on the evidence ofmental breakdown, substance abuse, orjob-related family problems is not avail-

VOLUME EIGHT, NO. 4, EEC., 1987. PAGE 42.

able for casino workers. Our observations sug-gest that these problems occur with consider-able frequency among casino workers. Thus farthe industry has not made any concession tothese problems.

Work in the casino industry is like most pro-duction work in the service industry. Jobs arelow-paid, dead-end, insecure, and least satis-fying. There is a tendency for these jobs tobe filled by women and for them to be unorgan-ized. More research is needed on the qualityand organization of production work in theservice industry. We suggest that, despite itsassociated glamour, the unsatisfying and in-secure working conditions of gaming industryoccupations are also characteristic of mostproduction jobs in other sectors of the ser-vice economy.

REFERENCES

'Averitt, R. T.1968 The Dual Economy: The Dynamics ofAmerican Industry Structure. New York:Norton,

Findlay, John M.1986 People of Change: Gambling in AmericanSociety from Jamestown to Las Vegas. NewYork: Oxford University.

Frey, James H.1986 Labor Issues in the Gaming Industry.Nevada Public Affairs Review. Pp. 32-38.

Ouchi, William G. and Alan L. Wllkens1985 Organized Culutre. Annual Review ofSociology, 11:451-483.

Skolnick, Jerome1978 House of Cards. Boston: Little, Brown|and Company.

Sullivan Theresa1978 Marginal Work, Marginal Jobs, Austin,Texas: University of Texas Press.

B O O K R E V I E W

SHOP TAIK: AN ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY

Edited by Zoe Landale. Pulp Press Book Publish-ers, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1985. 128pp.

REVIEWED BYt Richard Zlniner,Hutchins SchoolSonoma State University

I remember reading Edwin Markham's "The Manwith the Hoe" in grade school* I rememberseeing the picture by Jean Francois Milletthat the teacher showed along with it. Hieimages that came to me then - nobility,coupled with a lurking terror - still stickThe "dumb peasant" became, for me, the apo-theosis of brute work.

Those images did not make any sense when Idid my own share of brute work. The summerafter college I worked as a tile layer'shelper, mostly shoveling sand and carryingcement. Yes, 1 was tired. Oftentimes, 1felt empty. But I didn't feel the weigitof centuries on me. At the end of the day,1 thought of the lunch breaks 1 took withthe regulars. 1 also thought of the policeand fire inspectors who tried to stiff mycompany for violations. I thought, too, ofthe elevator man, who paced out the con-struction of the building. These memoriesare of daily, small events, not stagnation.

A collective of poets in Vancouver, BritislColumbia, has also seen that the smallevents of work life comprise the grist ofour daily life. The Vancouver IndustrialWriters' Union has put together a wonder-ful collection of poems that express andcelebrate the fact of daily events in aperson's job. They do not look at labor,even brute labor, in the cosmic terms ofMarkham or of revolutionary poets. Nor dothey ignore the work life of the indivi-dual, as is so common in the poetry ofthe New Yorker or Harper's. What theyfocus on are the meaningfulness and theproblems of the jobs most of us in theWestern World hold. The collective in-cludes doctors, shipyard workers, homecareworkers, laborers, and others. These poet-workers shape their daily tasks into meta-phors that touch us immediately.

David Conn's "Welder's Time" tells us thatthe actual building of a ship can be ex-perienced in terms akin to molten metal:

• •••time crawls at two meters per hour• •••a worm of molten rod prodded long

a deck seam"

The poet has seen himself at one with hiswork...in its agonizing inevitability anddrama. It is a recognition that work it-self gives us the metaphors for dailylife.

VOUUME EIGHT, NO. 4, EEC, 1987. PAGE 43-

Zoe Landale tells us, "Mea Culpa," in the minu-test detail that being out of work distortsour dinner time:

"Vegetables are served with the lashingsof psychology

He does not sit long in his chair afterdinner

If he did, she migjrt sweep him up withglittering fragments

Of their rage and throw him out the door."

Landale understands that this most commonevent for many of us is far more telling thanphilosophical, ultimate questions, and isworthy of poetical expression.

Moreover, the collection recognizes that poet-ics must recognize politics, not politics inthe sense of socialist realism, but in thelarger sense that poetics can, can (not must),mirror society and community Erin Moure'saysthis best in "Neighbours":

"They are neighboursHello my neighboursIn this age there are more of us thanthere are soldiers

Still, if we cry out our sadness and breakThe government will turn us into salt andfood."

Moure' raises for us ultimate dilemmas, butshe does it in terms that are human terms,with ambiguity woven in, with^final conse-quences left unanswered.

The Vancouver poets speak of the inevitably ofmaking meaning and being confronted with oftensolvable dilemmas for the average person.Their poems, often bitter, are not nihilistic.They do not bring up the kind of malaise ofEliot's "Prufrock" or the emptiness of Robin-son^ "Richard Cory." Rather, they evoke thefixity of Williams' "By the Road to the Con-tagious Hospital":

One t?y One objects are definedIt quickens: clarity, outline of leafBut now the stark dignity of the entrance."

In this collection, the poets see their obli-gation to follow Whitman's dictum to sing ofthemselves, in the language that makes work-life real and vivid, though perhaps not asnoble as they would prefer.

(continued next page)....

Book Review, (continued)

Ihis collection can be used as a supplement toanthropology and sociology of work classes, inphilosophy of work courses where ethical ques-tions are raised, and in English classes focusingon contemporary writing. The poets in the collec-tive have published in similar collections else-where. The book suggests that more Americansshould write about their worlds of work inpoetical fashion, so as to give a more graphicunderstanding of our daily lives to us non-poets.It is heartening to see in the pages of ourNewsletter work poetry starting to appear; it isa good beginning.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A Teachers Poem by Glen Sorestad

I killed you yesterdayin an arid classroom

and you diedhorriblybefore us allyour agonizing death-rattleso silentthat none around youcould hearnot even Iwho murdered youbludgeoning your whysin ruthless quest of what.

Only nowsummoned to answerthe charge before the courtof consciencecan I reconstruct the actand I knowthere can be no appeal.

(From: Going for Coffee

An Anthology by Tom Wayman 1981Harbour Publishing Co, Box 119Madiera Park, B.C. VON 2H0

VOLUME EIGHT, NO, 4, EEC,,1987. PAGE 44«

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