Casinos seek to build, re-build in Michigan
Casinos, casinos, everywhere.

Romulus voters OK'd a plan on Dec. 2 that would allow the construction of a new casino and race track, at a cost of $474 million. The casino would be sponsored by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

State authorities and Congress still have to approve the project.

In Detroit, three "temporary" casinos have been in place for a few years, and now plans are starting to fall into place to construct permanent facilities for two of them. But obstacles remain.

A legal settlement arranged two weeks ago between Motor City Casino, Greektown Casino and the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Tribe clears up a seven-year-old legal battle, and one of the remaining legal hurdles to the construction of hotels at those sites in Detroit.

However, approval has to be given by the Detroit City Council, and the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals still must lift its injunction in the case that is preventing construction. An injunction won't be lifted against the construction of a permanent MGM Grand Casino, because MGM wasn't part of the settlement.

Greektown Casino plans to build a 400-room, 26-story hotel tower near Ford Field. MotorCity plans to build a 16-story casino hotel near its current location. The price tag on the casinos is expected to come in at a cool $400 million each.

Meanwhile The Gun Lake Band of Potawatomi Indians is reportedly planning to construct a $100 million casino and resort on 153 acres in Allegan County's Wayland Township, south of Grand Rapids, although there is tremendous opposition from the business community.

The courts are also holding up the construction of another casino, in New Buffalo, which would be a $75 million, 190,000- square-foot facility.

A handful of other casinos are also planned in Michigan, which currently has 19 casinos.

Workers' interests lost twice 
WASHINGTON (PAI)- Workers' interests lost twice in the $402 billion defense bill that became law in late November.

The biggest losers were 746,000 civilian workers at the Defense Department, who were stripped of most, if not all, of their employee rights by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

And other workers lost when Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) dumped a "Buy American" provision.

Faced with the revocation of defense workers' rights, their union, the American Federation of Government Employees, called its Defense Department locals in for an emergency session "to share what steps we must take together in ensuring defense workers have a voice at work."

"Rumsfeld justifies his new fiefdom by using the words 'national security,' but this has nothing to do with improving security," AFGE President John Gage explained. "All it does is strip federal workers of the right to protect themselves.

"Rumsfeld's plan effectively discards critical civil service laws designed to put an end" to fairness on the job, Gage said. Instead, it imposes "a federal spoils system where patronage is rewarded and merit principles are a thing of the past."

Rumsfeld's plan eliminates annual raises, overtime pay, holiday pay, hazard pay, weekend pay, appeal rights, bargaining rights and protection against arbitrary firings, the union and congressional Democrats said. "It makes a mockery of labor relations at the Defense Department" for the next 6 years, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) added.

U.S. workers also lost when Warner dropped the House-passed requirement that at least 65 percent of any goods DOD buys be U.S.-made. Federal Times reported lobbyists for electronics, information technology and aerospace industries pushed successfully against the buy-American provision in the bill.