Union to vote on authorizing Atlantic City casino strike

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City casino workers were voicing strong support Wednesday for a potential strike against the gambling houses as union members voted on whether to authorize a walkout if new contracts are not reached soon.

Members of Local 54 of the Unite Here union were voting on whether to empower their negotiating committee to call a strike. Voting ended at 7 p.m. and union officials said they expected it to take about an hour to count the ballots.

Contracts expired over two weeks ago and talks have yet to reach a new deal.

A “yes” vote will not result in an immediate strike. It simply gives the union’s negotiating committee, comprised of workers from all nine casinos, the power to call a strike if and when they see fit.

“We are fighting for economics across the board, for all job classifications,” said Ruth Ann Joyce, a bartender at the Harrah’s and Hard Rock casinos, and a veteran of Atlantic City labor wars. She worked at the Showboat when it closed in 2014, one of four casinos to go belly-up that year.

The union says it is seeking “significant” wage increases in the next contract to help workers deal with financial setbacks caused by the coronavirus pandemic and rapidly rising prices.

“Historically our fights in general have dealt with health care,” Joyce said. “This go-round, it’s about economics. We can’t find workers because there’s no money, and it’s hard to hold onto the workers we do have because they can go somewhere else and make more.”

Rodney Mills, a housekeeper at Tropicana, said he is ready to strike if need be.

“Things are really hard right now,” he said after casting his ballot at the Atlantic City Convention Center. “We need a livable wage to survive.”

The labor dispute comes at an uncertain time in Atlantic City: The casinos and their online partners are collectively making more money now than before the pandemic hit.

But the casinos say those statistics are misleading because they get to keep only about 30% of online and sports betting money, with the rest going to their third-party partners. They say that in-person revenue won from gamblers is the crucial metric, and not all the casinos have surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.

The union went on strike in 2004 for 34 days, and walked out against the former Trump Taj Mahal casino in July 2016, which ended with the casino shutting down in October of that year. It has since reopened under different ownership as the Hard Rock.

So far, the union has secured agreements with the Ocean Casino Resort and Bally’s to honor the terms of contracts eventually reached with some of the larger casino companies in town, but no contracts have yet been agreed upon.

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Wayne Parry, The Associated Press