Donald Trump opened the casino in 1990, but it now belongs to the Republican presidential nominee’s friend Carl Icahn.
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Four casinos – Showboat, Atlantic Club, Revel and Trump Plaza – closed in 2014, victims of increased gambling competition on the East Coast and leading to an estimated 8,000 lost jobs.
According to Tropicana Entertainment CEO and President Tony Rodio, the Taj is already losing “multimillions a month” and that, coupled with the latest union strike, “We see no path to profitability”.
Rodio added that, if the union had chose to end the strike and accept the health care package that has been proposed to it, the Taj would still be losing money but “at least there would be hope”.
More than 1,000 members of the Local 54 chapter of the Unite-Here union have been on strike since 1 July, demanding restoration of the health insurance and pension benefits that were stripped from the casino’s employees by a bankruptcy court judge in 2014. “But the Taj board and the Icahn Enterprises Board have fiduciary duties to shareholders and our directors can not just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the union has single-handedly blocked any path to profitability”. Workers have demanded better health care and pension benefits that they previously lost when a prior owner took the casino in bankruptcy. “Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we will have to close the Taj after Labor Day weekend”. The strike at the casino-hotel follows union agreements with Tropicana Atlantic City and Caesars Entertainment, which owns Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s Resort and Bally’s Atlantic City.
The union rejected that offer.
In a statement, Local 54 President Bob McDevitt called the casino’s plan a “petty” move by the “one-dimensional” Carl Icahn, head of Icahn Enterprises.
Baker said numerous Taj Mahal workers are Day 1 employees like him, on the job since the moment Trump opened the doors in 1990.
McDevitt says 60-day warning notices for employees are required, estimating the earliest a shutdown would be permitted would be in early October.
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Donald Trump once owned three Atlantic City casinos, but cut most ties with the city by 2009.
