Croupiers at the Montreal Casino in Canada have begun a general strike against Loto-Québec demanding safer working conditions and higher pay for new employees. In Atlantic City, officials of Unite Here Local 54 say the casinos there have some catching up to do in terms of wages. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Resorts World has concluded contract negotiations with the Culinary Union, to mutual satisfaction.
The Montreal strike began May 21 with workers staging a demonstration and walking a picket line. The general strike was preceded by two work stoppages the weekend before.
The union represents 521 dealers, who have been working without a contract since March 2020, when Covid shutdowns began. Besides safety and salaries, they are protesting shorter shift schedules that force croupiers to sometimes work six days a week to get more than 30 hours.
Union representative Jean-Pierre Proulx told the Montreal Gazette, “One in two of our employees suffers physical injuries due to the nature of the work, which includes dealing nearly 10,000 cards a day, five to six days a week.”
He added, “After 15 years on the job, that starts to add up,” and leads to repetitive strain injuries such as tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. “We are demanding better management of work shifts and rest breaks to avoid injuries.”
Loto-Québec, which operates all casinos in the province, said the facility will operate as usual, with gaming tables, dining, slot machines and performances operating without interruption. Only the poker lounge is closed.
In a statement, the lottery operator insisted that it provides safe working conditions. It added that croupiers at the Montreal Casino “are asking for 30 minutes of paid break for each hour worked. They would, therefore, spend more than 30 percent of their shift on paid break, which is unusual in the industry.”
Loto-Québec wants to decrease the starting salaries of new employees by 5 percent, from $18.40 an hour to $17.44, which it says is much higher than what is offered in the market. Proulx calls this irresponsible in view of labor shortages and unacceptable.
In Atlantic City, employee contract negotiations were due to expire May 31, the unofficial but very busy start of summer at the shore. If the city’s casinos and the workers’ union negotiate in good faith, the union would likely not take any strike action. But when fast-food restaurants are paying $15 an hour, UNITE HERE officials say the AC casino industry needs to step up its compensation.
They say casinos have come out from under the weight of the pandemic and are profitable as an industry. The casinos counter that April was the first month where in-person revenue mirrored a pre-pandemic month. And even that hopeful sign was questionable. According to the Associated Press, the bump might have been a factor of an extra weekend day and nothing more.
To turn up the heat, the union established a website, actravelalert.org, which provides a list of hotels in the city with contracts in place. The website also includes a large photo of striking union members picketing outside the former Trump Taj Mahal casino in 2016. It was a defining moment in labor relations in Atlantic City, and led billionaire Carl Icahn to close the property, which reopened as a Hard Rock casino resort.
“We’re not threatening anybody,” said Local 54 President Bob McDevitt. “But we’re very serious about leveraging whatever we need to leverage to get our members a good contract.”
Local 54 is in negotiations with Caesars Entertainment, which owns Caesars, Harrah’s, and the Tropicana, and MGM Resorts International, which owns the Borgata. Ocean Casino Resort and Bally’s will agree to the terms reached with the other casinos.
“The reality is there are very few people at Caesars and no one at MGM that has any kind of institutional knowledge of what a conflict can be like here,” McDevitt said.
It’s not all labor strife in the news. In Las Vegas, members of the Culinary Union, the UNITE HERE local, overwhelmingly approved a new contract with Resorts World, the first mega-resort to open on the Strip since the Cosmopolitan in 2010. The Genting Berhad property opened in June 2021 on the site of the former Stardust Casino.
Last Wednesday, Culinary Workers Local 226 announced that 99 percent of its members had ratified a three-year agreement with Resorts World following negotiations that began in December.
In a statement, Culinary Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said Resorts World was receptive to a card-check neutrality agreement, in which management takes a hands-off stance as the union worked to recruit employees. He said that position “showed the city and employees that the company respected workers’ right to choose whether to form a union.”
The new contract begins June 1 and covers guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, laundry workers and kitchen workers. The Nevada Independent reported that it includes health care benefits, wage increases, successorship under an ownership change and a sexual harassment policy, among other benefits.
Resorts World President Scott Sibella said in a statement that the agreement “recognizes the value of our employees and their contributions to the property.”
