The United Auto Workers union says a majority of the 3,000 dealers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino have endorsed a campaign to form a local, and the UAW yesterday petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to organize a formal election.

There are no union members among the 11,000 employees at Foxwoods, the world’s largest casino. Yesterday, supporters of the organizing effort said it could spark similar campaigns at Indian-run casinos nationwide.

“This petition is epochal, portending huge shifts in the legal and labor landscape at tribal casinos around the country,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a union advocate, said in a statement.

“These casino dealers have the same rights as any workers anywhere,” Blumenthal said, “even if their employer is a federally recognized tribe on a sovereign reservation.”

The NLRB has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 9 to rule on any disputes over the proposed bargaining unit. If the regional office rules for the union, it would then schedule an election.

To form a union, the UAW would need a simple majority of eligible voters. It has declined to disclose how many table game and poker dealers filled out union cards, saying only that a “supermajority” supports unionizing.

A spokesman for Foxwoods, outside Ledyard, Conn., did not respond to a request for comment yesterday. The casino has opposed the unionization effort, warning staff of union dues and the potential loss of benefits in contract negotiations.

In recruitment materials, Foxwoods says it offers “competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package.”

The unionizing campaign — considered the largest of its kind in Connecticut in several decades — was made possible by a federal court decision in February that extended the NLRB’s authority to Indian-run casinos.

Previously, Indian tribes had argued that the workers were employees of sovereign tribal governments and did not come under the jurisdiction of the federal agency.

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which owns Foxwoods, has not said it accepts the court ruling, potentially complicating the unionizing effort, according to John Cotter, the NLRB’s assistant regional director.

“These proceedings may bring up novel issues,” Cotter said yesterday. “These are matters we don’t have a lot of precedent on.”

The regional NLRB office, in Hartford, has never approved a local union at the Mohegan Sun casino, in Uncasville, Conn., near Foxwoods.

“This is a special industry,” Cotter said. “We have no prior experience in this office.”

Efforts to organize Foxwoods dealers intensified late last year, when some staff members established a Web site, www.madatfoxwoods.com, bearing the slogan, “Had Enough Yet?”

The site became a clearinghouse for employee gripes, particularly after Foxwoods disbanded the Employee Group Council, an informal association of staff created to communicate employee concerns to management.

In January, the Web site’s organizers used it to promote a New Year’s Day walkout. The action drew only modest participation, but by then, the site had attracted the attention of the UAW, which has organized casino employees in Atlantic City and Detroit.

In June, union organizers began gathering signatures, an effort that culminated with yesterday’s petition to the NLRB.

“Foxwoods is one of the most profitable enterprises in the country,” poker dealer Jacqueline Little, 46, of Coventry, said yesterday. “It is really tough to see our benefits and pay eroded while their profits increase.”

Little, who has worked at Foxwoods since 1992, said employee contributions toward health-care premiums are too high. The health-care coverage, she said, is “substandard.”

Poker dealer Steven Peloso, a former member of the employee council, said the wages paid to dealers are also poor.

Peloso, 49, of Coventry, earned $3.75 per hour when he was hired 15 years ago. Today, he is paid $7.80 per hour, a $2.24 raise in inflation-adjusted dollars. (Dealers, however, can make up to two-thirds of their pay in tips.)

Foxwoods, home to 7,000 slot machines and 400 tables for games, attracts 40,000 visitors every day.

If the dealers vote to form a union, UAW officials say, a campaign to unionize slot-machine technicians and attendants could begin soon.

“Union jobs are good jobs,” Lori Pelletier, secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, said in a statement yesterday. “When workers in a company this large secure better pay and benefits, it results in a stronger state and regional economy. This is a real shot in the arm for casino workers in Connecticut and across the country.”

bgedan@projo.com