Union fights Taj Mahal with light-show graffiti

ATLANTIC CITY — The city’s largest union is shining a spotlight on Trump — literally.

Local 54 of UNITE-HERE is using a specially-outfitted spotlight to spray protest messages on casinos run by Wall Street mogul Carl Icahn. 

“It’s all about the lumens,” said Ben Albert, Local 54’s director of staff, who’s been helping the union give the spotlight treatment at Taj and sister resort Tropicana to dissuade visitors from patronizing the properties.

The casinos have been roiled by labor unrest ever since a federal judge, in October, gave Taj Mahal permission to end pension and health benefits for about 1,100 Local 54 workers. Tropicana, the Havana-themed resort at the other end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, is being used by union workers as a pressure-point in their campaign to have the Taj benefits reinstated.

The spotlight tactic, sometimes called “guerilla lighting,” has been used by activists across the country to protest everything from degradation of the environment to Wall Street malfeasance. For the union, it’s a nimble, highly visible form of leverage — Randy the Rat, 2.0.

The tools of the trade are metal discs called “gobos” etched with custom designs and affixed to the spotlight. 

Local 54 has been using the barbs —“Stop the Trop,” “Boycott Taj” — for about a year. 

“It’s very 21st century and very clever,” said Deborah Figart, professor of economics and education at Stockton University, who’s seen spotlight campaigns firsthand at hotels elsewhere in the United States.

It’s a photogenic, social-media-savvy twist on the traditional boycott, said Figart, who studies the Atlantic City casino workforce and co-authored a book on the subject. But the aim — to drive business away from an embattled property — is the same.

Lately, Local 54 has taken a particular liking to the mammoth white facade of Trump Plaza’s defunct parking garage at the foot of the Atlantic City Expressway.

“We’re considering it a giant drive-in movie screen,” said Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54, which represents about 10,000 housekeepers, bartenders and other service workers. 

He said the union plans to start projecting moving images: “We’re looking to expand our options for the viewing pleasure of the tourists of Atlantic City.”

So much for that dig about Atlantic City not having a movie theater.

Sgt. Monica McMenamin, spokeswoman for the Atlantic City Police Department, said officers responded to calls about spotlights on Trump Taj Mahal and the closed Trump Plaza and determined the union wasn’t breaking any laws. The officers did not ask the union to disperse, she said.

On another front in the labor dispute, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross is considering whether Local 54 violated bankruptcy law when it contacted Taj Mahal’s event clients and encouraged them to take their business elsewhere.

In October, Gross gave Taj’s corporate parent the green light to end health and pension benefits as part of a cost-cutting campaign that the company said would save $14.6 million annually.

The union has appealed to the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Carl Icahn has said he will close Taj if Local 54 prevails.

Spokeswomen for Trump Taj Mahal and Tropicana did not return calls for comment. 

Source: Press of Atlantic City