The company said in a statement Wednesday that it has “lost nearly $100 million trying to save the Taj”. Four of its 12 casinos remain shut after closing in 2014, though one reopened as a hotel only.
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The Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City will close after Labor Day, according to a report in The Press of Atlantic City.
The union, Local 54, fired back, saying it was “petty” to shut the Taj.
In this July 21, 2016 photo, a young girl uses a megaphone during picketing by striking union members outside the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J. On Thursday Aug. 4, the strike by Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union w. “Unfortunately we’ve reached the point where we will have to close the Taj”, Tony Rodio, the president of Tropicana Entertainment, which runs the hotel, told ABC. The money Icahn would have spent on workers’ health care and retirement, McDevitt said, was small compared to the amount he had promised to invest in the struggling city. The casino was built by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, then-Trump Entertainment Resorts chairman, in 1990.
Approximately 1,000 cooks, maids, bellboys, bartenders and waiters are participating in the Trump Taj Mahal strike.
Represented by Unite Here Local 54, some 1,000 Trump Taj Mahal workers went on strike July 1, asking for the restoration of health-care benefits lost in the company’s most recent bankruptcy. These included the temporary cessation of worker pension and healthcare benefits, which have become the focus of the squabble between Icahn Enterprises and the casino workers’ union.
The casino is now owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, but it was founded by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“Why have they incited you, the union workers at the Taj, to destroy your jobs and your livelihood rather than accept the prior offer that we made at McDevitt’s suggestion?” It had twice as many parking spaces than any other in Atlantic City.
In a campaign stop last month in the New Jersey town, Clinton had hit Trump for “multiple bankruptcies, stiffing contractors and spurring hundreds of job losses” during his time owning casinos in Atlantic City.
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The Labor Day weekend closure of the Trump Taj Mahal will leave only seven casinos operating in the beachside resort, which has been fighting financial problems for years. The managing company agreed to restore the perks, but the offer was much worse than other casino workers in Atlantic City receive, and was rejected by the union.
