Audio recording clip of interview with Rachel Coleman by Claytee D. White, July 24, 1996

First tell me the duties of a business agent. A business agent at that time, we like collected dues and we fought grievance. We just go in the hotel and make sure everything's running smoothly. And you check for anything that's going wrong. You're there for the members mainly. So let's say that it's a Monday morning and you go into Caesars Palace. Do you go over there for a special reason or do you just go over to look around? A lot of times you just went to look around. Now, give me a scenario of someone coming up to you now and — do they come up to while you're there on the property and in the hotel? Sometimes, yes. Tell me how it works. Well, usually you go in at lunchtime. You mingle with them on their lunch or you come in early in the morning. You sit here when they're checking in in the morning. And if they've got problems, they give them to you. And if it's a big problem, you have them come down and fill out a grievance. If it's a small problem, you take care of it right then. Give me an example of a small problem. Let's say like, well, they're changing my station with no reason at all. Then you say, well, okay, why they changing your station? I don't know. So you come in and talk to the housekeeper to find out why they're doing it. So you just go straight to the housekeeper? Yes. Now, give me an example of a bigger problem, one that you handled when you were an agent. What would be the biggest — all of them are big problems when they come around to them. I can't remember — Give me an example of — now, most of the women at this point — well; we're in the 70s now, aren't we, because you're an agent, 1973? Are all of the maids are still black women? At that time most of them was black women, yes. When other nationalities became maids, were there any problems with race relations on the job? No. You have to remember that after the money start to be pretty good, everybody wanted to be a maid. Like you used to go out and you'd see nothing but black on the tractor. When the money become big, everybody wanted to be. The garbage truck used to be black men. The money is good now. It's white, Mexican, everything out there. That's what you have to remember. The money factor is what got more people involved. So now the maids are making more money. So that's when other nationalities start becoming maids. Yeah. And then blacks don't really want to be maids anymore. They want to be other things, which I don't blame them. They wanted to move up. And that's the way it is. Have you come up yet with an example of a bigger problem? I'm sure I had a lot of problems. Suppose somebody's fired. Can you remember an example of when somebody's being fired and they don't think it's justified? Oh, I had one from the DI [Desert Inn], I can tell you about this one. Two people got to fighting on the job. Fist fighting we're talking about here? Yeah. They fired both of them. So my lawyer had me laughing about this. He said I'll do anything to get people back to work. So anyway, we were going to arbitration because I thought the one was fired unjust because one said the other one hit first. And I didn't think this. So anyway, this young man was supposed to have been in a coma or something that the other one hit him. So I said, well, this man testified that it was really this guy's fault. And so we had the arbitration going. We waited and waited until he got better. So he died. So they had to put the guy back to work because we didn't have a witness. So my lawyer called and said guess what? I have seen people win cases. But you go to any length to win. I said what you mean? He said this guy died and they're putting the other guy back to work. I remember that case the whole time. Phil Bole said I cannot believe you'll go to any length to get them back to work. I said, Phil, I wouldn't do that, but he got to go back to work. So they put him back to work.