Saturday, July 30, 2016

At DNC, striking Taj Mahal workers say A.C.'s plight could spread if Trump elected



Striking Trump Taj Mahal workers warned that if the Republican presidential candidate is elected, the financial plight seen in Atlantic City's hospitality industry could happen elsewhere in the Philadelphia region.

About a dozen UNITE HERE Local 54 workers joined the Democratic Labor Council on Monday afternoon – 25 days after they began picketing around the clock outside the Carl Icahn-owned Trump Taj Mahal casino.


Fighting for better health and pension benefits, the union members said they have not had a formal negotiation session with Taj Mahal leadership since June 30. Four other casinos – Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel and Casino, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City Hotel and Casino, and the Tropicana Casino, also owned by Icahn – came to terms with the union and avoided a strike.

“You can give to one of your properties, Tropicana, but you can’t give to Taj Mahal workers. That’s not right,” said Chuck Baker, a 56-year-old relief cook who has spent 26 years working at the Taj Mahal.

Icahn has previously said he cannot satisfy the workers’ demands because of Taj’s financial position, which emerged from bankruptcy in February 2016. Messages left with his offices Monday were not returned.

Baker, an Atlantic City native, lumped Icahn, the activist investor who bought Taj out of bankruptcy, with the GOP’s Donald Trump, whose name still adorns the casino he brought to bankruptcy court more than 25 years ago.

“He ran Taj Mahal in the ground. He came, he pillaged, he ripped us off,” Baker said about Trump. “They are big business, they are corporate. They come in and they take, take, take.”

The comments from the striking casino workers were echoed Monday night in the convention by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. He told the tens of thousands of people at the Wells Fargo Center that Trump "got rich while his companies declared multiple bankruptcies."

Others speaking on the first night of the Democratic National Convention made similar statements to the roaring crowd. Sen. Elizabeth Warren brought up Trump's history of running companies that declare bankruptcy and repeated what many in Atlantic City already know – Trump skipped out on paying or underpaid some of the contractors who helped build the massive casinos.

"What kind of man cheats students, cheats investors, cheats workers?" she asked.

Union members warned that cheating led to Icahn's takeover and the situation they are currently facing.

UNITE HERE Local 54 spokesman Ben Begleiter added the Taj workers' fight could set a standard for other hotel and casino workers throughout the region – a reason why the labor organization is urging others to vote Hillary Clinton in November.

"Atlantic City is the standard for hospitality workers in the region, and lots of hospitality workers will look at what the workers in Atlantic City make and say that’s what I want. I know that is true in Baltimore," Begleiter said.

Baker added that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee stands with the "working class," and Trump does not.

"It is not about being against Trump," Baker said. "It is for Hillary, because Hillary is for the working class. She is about changing American in the right direction."

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