ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - October 9, 2011
He has not had a raise in seven years at his housekeeping job at
Resorts Casino Hotel. And in December, when the casino changed
hands, the new owners cut his pay from $14.55 an hour to $9.83.
"Now I can barely keep up with my bills and buy food," Vidal
said. "I've gotten rid of cable TV, the Internet, long-distance
phone calls. I can no longer send money to my mother back home. I'm
a grown man and I can't even go to a movie with someone. Do I
deserve a decent life like everyone else in the United States?"
It's a life that many casino workers in Atlantic City fear could
become theirs, too, if steep cuts in pay and benefits that the
casinos are pushing in contract talks are adopted. The casinos have
struggled for five years with plunging revenues amid ever-growing -
and ever-closer - competition.
Saying the survival of the nation's second-largest gambling
market is at stake, the casinos want hourly cuts of $3 from a work
force that averages $12 an hour. They also want workers to
contribute for the first time to their health insurance and
retirement benefit costs.
The union, Local 54 of Unite-HERE, has offered givebacks from
areas other than base salary and benefits that total 50 cents an
hour, but both sides remain far apart. Bob McDevitt, the union
president, said his workers understand the dire straits Atlantic
City's casinos are in.
But he said the workers are in an equally perilous position,
with nothing less than the American Dream at stake:
"This is more than a contract; it was a societal compact the
state of New Jersey made with these workers when casino gambling
was approved, that these would be good, middle-class jobs with
decent benefits that you could make a living from. Now, is that
promise going to be broken?"
Contracts between Local 54 and 10 of the 11 casinos expired last
month. Both sides are abiding by the terms of the expired deals
while negotiating new ones. The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa's
contract runs through next year.
Don Marrandino, eastern division president for Caesars
Entertainment, which owns four of Atlantic City's casinos, said
both sides recognize the problems the market faces right now.
"These are tough times for Atlantic City," he said. "That's
no secret. But I remain optimistic that we'll get a deal done. We
haven't had any jobs fairs to line up replacement workers or
outsourced anything. We continue to have our eye on the ball to get
this resolved."
Workers at Resorts have taken the biggest hits so far. When
Dennis Gomes and Morris Bailey bought the struggling gambling hall
last year, it was within days of closing, awash in red ink and all
but forsaken by gamblers. The new owners said reducing expenses was
the only way they could keep the casino open and preserve about
2,000 jobs.
Since then, other casinos have followed Resorts' lead, saying
they, too, need big reductions in their expenses to survive.
It's not idle talk: Over the last 4½ years, Atlantic City has
lost a billion and a half dollars in casino revenue, along with
thousands of jobs. The 10 casinos in neighboring Pennsylvania are
poised to overtake Atlantic City's 11 casinos and become the
nation's second-largest gambling market sometime next year. And New
York City is adding a casino at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens,
and talking openly of allowing one or more in Manhattan.
The union picketed Resorts every weekend in September and
persuaded at least three conventions to take their business
elsewhere. Union organizer Rita Lewis recently dressed in a flapper
outfit designed to look like the Roaring `20s costumes that Resorts
makes its female beverage servers wear, right down to the black
fishnet stockings and the garter belt. She uses the attention the
outfit gets to try to persuade customers not to patronize Resorts.
And at least sometimes, it works. Joe Brisby and Kevin
Fonteneau, both of Philadelphia, were with a group of friends
headed for Resorts last week when Lewis handed them a flier
outlining the pay cuts many Resorts workers have had to take. A
short conversation persuaded them to take their business elsewhere.
"We used to come here every two weeks, but I'm not interested
in coming here anymore," Brisby said. "It's just wrong."
"We can't support a casino that won't support its workers,"
added Fonteneau. "We're going to Caesars."
Frances Stevenson has worked as a housekeeper at the Tropicana
Casino and Resort for 17 years, and says she has never seen a labor
climate like the current one in Atlantic City.
"They want us to give up everything we've earned," she said
while waving a union sign during a recent boardwalk picket.
"They're coming after our health care and our retirement. I
understand the economy is in a bad way, but at least let us keep
what we've already earned.
"I have two grandchildren that I'm helping support, and one of
them is getting ready to go to college," said Stevenson, who makes
$14 an hour. "If (the casinos) get what they want, it would be
hard to live on that. I could barely pay my own bills. It would be
almost like going back on welfare again, and who wants to do
that?"
Several casino workers applied for food stamps over the summer,
and still others stopped using their air conditioners.
Steve Bond has worked for 22 years as a cook at Bally's Atlantic
City. He, too, is worried about falling out of the middle class.
"It's not going to do the casino industry any good to take so
much away from the workers," he said. "We need to stop picking on
workers in America, as if we're the problem. It's a shame what's
happening these days."
Shirish Patel, a housekeeper at Resorts for 19 years, says he is
draining his retirement savings even as he gets closer to retiring.
Iris Cotto, a Resorts housekeeper for 18½ years, saw her pay cut
from more than $14 an hour to $9.51. Her take-home pay is now
$1,200 a month; her monthly mortgage alone is $1,300, and she has
burned through her retirement savings just to keep her home.
Vidal, the resorts housekeeper, said he can no longer afford
even a used car.
"The price of everything keeps going up," he said. "If they
cut our pay, how are we going to survive? How is Atlantic City
going to survive? I would love someone to answer those questions
for me."
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Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
AC casino workers fear falling from middle class
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