Workers at Trump Taj Mahal made one last-ditch effort to save the casino which, as it seems, will be closed for good in a little more than a month. UNITE HERE Local 54 members presented on Monday the gambling venue’s management team with a plan that, according to them, would have saved it from permanent closure.
The plan was rejected by Icahn and his representatives in Atlantic City and the meeting turned into another opportunity for workers and managers to engage into their more-than-a-year-long war of words.
Trump Taj Mahal barely escaped closure in 2014. As part of its efforts to recover from its financial troubles, the casino terminated its workers’ health insurance and pension benefits plans, replacing them with less favorable contracts. Early in July, UNITE HERE Local 54 members, employed at the hotel and casino complex, walked out and have picketed it for more than a month, asking to have their previous contracts restored or at least to be offered more beneficial than their current ones.
Workers and management did not reach an agreement on what a mutually favorable contract should look like and Carl Icahn, who bought the property last year, thus saving it from bankruptcy, announced that it would be shuttered on October 10 as it was losing millions of dollars due to the workers’ strike and was far from the profitable venue it had once been.
When Trump Taj Mahal closes its doors for good, more than 3,000 people will remain unemployed. To prevent this from happening, Local 54 officials and members tried to present the casino’s management team with an offer that would have cost only $1.3 million more than Mr. Icahn’s last offer to workers.
The UNITE HERE proposal would have restored workers’ health insurance in January 2017. In September 2017, a contract that was adopted by Tropicana, another Atlantic City-based casino owned by Mr. Icahn, would have been introduced to Trump Taj Mahal employees as well.
Although workers considered the Monday meeting their last chance to save the casino and their jobs, managers of the venue said that their intention was not to discuss a deal but to go through closure details.
Following the meeting, Tony Rodio, who oversees Trump Taj Mahal’s operations on Mr. Icahn’s behalf and is also the current Tropicana Casino President, said that UNITE HERE Local 54 President Bob McDevitt was among those to be blamed for the upcoming closure as his interference in the matter had prevented workers from accepting a deal that would have saved their workplace.
Workers and Local 54 officials, on the other hand, did not hide their disappointment with yet another missed opportunity to help the venue avoid closure.
Trump Taj Mahal was opened in 1990 by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Although the venue still bears his name, Mr. Trump cut ties with it and his other Atlantic City assets years ago.
