Casino to union: Drop cost-savings appeal or we’ll drop you
Source: AP-Courier Post
WAYNE PARRY
ATLANTIC CITY The parent company of Atlantic Citys Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort gave its union an ultimatum Monday: Drop your appeal of a court-ordered cost savings package or we shut the casino down and put 3,000 workers on the street.
Describing itself as a very sick patient lying on his death bed, Trump Entertainment Resorts wrote to its 3,000 employees, calling on Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union to drop its appeal of a judges order letting the company cancel its union contract.
The company said relief from health insurance and pension costs is essential to keeping the casino open past the end of this month, and it described its appeal to the union as a last ditch effort to keep the casino open.
Our company is unfortunately hanging on by the skin of its teeth, company CEO Robert Griffin wrote to Taj Mahal employees. We are quickly running out of money and will be forced to notify the gaming regulators that we will be closed within a month unless our problems are quickly resolved. Your company is like a very sick patient lying on his death bed, and his partner the union, who is supposed to help, is instead hitting him over the head with a hammer.
FULL story at link.
(Photo: AP )
Read more: http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-jersey/2014/11/10/casino-union-drop-cost-savings-appeal-drop/18825399/
Treant
(1,968 posts)Or so he claims. So paying for this shouldn't be an issue at all!
Unless, of course, either a) he's greedy, or b) he's lying, or c) both.
I vote for option c.
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)that owns the casino or atleast thats what he is claiming http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20140806_Trump__Plaza_and_Taj_Mahal_casinos_too_shabby_to_bear_his_name_anymore.html
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)He'll lose more money if that happens. That is if they shut it down and not hire new people in their place.
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)The city is dying. Two other resorts have closed down already. This is the next Detroit. I was a member of that union; the most corrupt and mobbed up local I've ever seen. If the Union doesn't make some concessions to keep the property open, they're going to harm their members permanently.
Treant
(1,968 posts)PA now allows casinos, so our people don't travel there any longer, they use the local ones.
7962
(11,841 posts)If every state legalized casinos the only ones that would survive would be the ones where there is a lot more to offer than just gambling.
A casino cant make money unless they get a LOT of traffic thru the doors
Treant
(1,968 posts)outcompeting AC. I expect that, in the future, PA's casinos will be even more corrupt than they currently are, and the customer base will shift due to simple convenience, cost, and offerings.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Did they have to work hard to be free. Oh, yeah, still at it. But OUR LAWS don't state that black skin is worth less than white skin, any longer.
They had to leave the plantation to get their freedom,
Maybe these workers would be better to tell them to take a hike and start working on their own cooperatives? Sounds like it is going downhill anyway, why make sure the wealthy can keep making money from their labor till the bitter end?
BumRushDaShow
(128,979 posts)Over the past almost 40 years since legalization, they pushed the "family" draw (amusement piers, arcades, kitschy stores, etc) OFF the boardwalk in order to force people into the casinos. They essentially "turned their back" to the boardwalk. The fact that they closed storied piers of my youth (Million Dollar Pier, Steeple Chase Pier) to replace them with condos and a junky "mall" (shaped like a ship), and quickly broke promises to take proceeds to fix up the city behind the boardwalk, just accelerated the downfall. Ironically, this Trump Taj Mahal is directly across from the most famous pier in AC - the Steel Pier (and has a skywalk between them connected to a fortress-like edifice that essentially "walls off" the pier from view).
What distinguishes AC from LV is that AC is blessed with an ocean resort location... and that was summarily ignored and squandered. LV finally decided to wage a long battle to rebrand as a "family" resort in the middle of the desert (in order to compete with AC and all the other casinos popping up near them on the reservations). Meanwhile AC sat fat and happy with little competition until recently... Now tourists head to Ocean City, NJ or Wildwood for that "family" experience. Plus here in PA, you have a number of casinos, at least one in a "resort" area (the famous "Mt. Airy Lodge" in the Poconos), plus another casino license about to be announced here in the city (to join SugarHouse which sits on the Delaware River). Why drive 1 1/2 hours to AC when you can just roll to downtown Philly or head up to the Philly/Bucks Co border to go to the Parx casino (and do some off-track horse race betting) or go west to Chester to Harrah's?
And as a sidenote, AC has been corrupt since its founding.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)Yes, A.C. is a dying rat hole. The city had a gift of millions of bucks. Every time you parked, money was collected and $2.00 went to the city for redevelopment. Money came into the city but who knows where it went?
A few blocks of housing were torn down. A new tunnel was built to allow gamblers to go to the casinos in the bay and not have to see the poor housing. An outdoor mall was built with the usual crap to sell that you see in other indoor malls. If you are there, you are there for gambling, not shopping.
Caesars build a mall on the "Million Dollar Pier." People go to both malls but few buy anything. Why bother when you can get the same stuff five miles from where you live.
Several A.C. politicians have been sent to prison so maybe that is where the casino redevelopment money went. Four casinos shut down in the past year. Trump Taj, Resorts, Golden Nugget and Harrah's may follow. You can go into any of those casinos on a Saturday night and find $10.00 tables. Five years ago, the minimum would have been $15 or $25. Pennsylvania casinos have $25.00 tables. (however, I read that the Mt. Airy casino in Pa. isn't doing well.)
Its simple.... if all you want to do is gamble, why would you drive two hours to A.C. when a casino is 1/2 or one hour away from your house?
Meanwhile, N.J. is losing revenue from N.J. gamblers going to Pa. because Krispy and the legislature is trying to prop up A.C. by not opening casinos in northern N.J. That won't continue too much longer because the state needs that revenue.
Trump's Taj and a couple of others will fold. When a casino or two open up in north Jersey, several A.C. casinos will fold. I can envision a time in five years where there will be two or three casinos in A.C. There are now 8 casinos operating in A.C., down from a maximum of 13.
Go to A.C. Lights are out on some of the casino signs. There is a large Ferris wheel on the pier across the boardwalk from the "Taj." It is lit as an attractant go demonstrate the glitz and fun of the boardwalk. Problem is, there are sections of lights that are conspicuously out.
jmowreader
(50,557 posts)The answer is simple: They have none. Worse, companies on their deathbeds almost always die, because they can't figure out the Essential Truth: if your company is in trouble because of Lack of Customers, the only thing that will fix it is to bring more customers in.
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)can get the company to agree to renegotiate the contract once the company emerges from bankruptcy and that there is a strict cap on executive pay and benefits as well with zero golden parachutes provided to any of the executives or upper management until a new contract is signed.
jmowreader
(50,557 posts)I don't think Bain Capital would take the job, seeing as how a casino violates every Mormon rule of conduct there is, but this looks like the first stage of an LBO - configure the company so it's easier to sell piecemeal.
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)history of this casino specifically I suspect such a thing has a good chance of happening.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)There must be some middle ground -- we'll give up benefits until revenue reaches these targets, etc.
It would be horrible for the Hostess Bakery situation to repeat itself -- for all involved.
turbinetree
(24,701 posts)First of all Trump and all of the other oligarchy went to the state and said we want to build our casinos in the sate but we can only do it in this one area near this beach Atlantic City.
So, much of the home owners in the state put up there homes near the shore and were grandfathered in before the casinos came in the late 1980's so when they bought the marshland to put up there buildings they had to gets a special permit to pay the property taxes on the newly developed land or riparian rights and they used really old maps.
Well anyone that bought land prior to these investors coming in, already paid for there riparian rights.
Well these jerks went back into the legislature and demanded that the home owners prior to them coming pay the same fee they were being charged, so now before you can sell your shore home you must pay the riparian rights to the state and if you have not paid, you are getting assessed a fee for the riparian right.
So.....
Per the State of New Jersey Department of Land Use Regulation, A riparian grant is a deed from the State of New Jersey for the sale of its tidelands, also known as riparian lands
Current policy is to issue grants only for historic tidelands. That is, the State of New Jersey no longer sells currently flowed tidelands.
So....
This land is very desirable and very expensive to sell and own, a lot in some sections of the coast, go for over 6 million on 70 by 50 foot lot and then when you put a house on the lot it will be priced in millions, depending on the bathrooms and square footage you cannot create more land to build, so this is why the property is very expensive
So when the Apprentice right wing hypocrite goes whining that the unions must give up something or face a job, loss, if this guy is worth so many millions and he can go over to Ireland and build a golf course, then he can pay for groups health care.
Gambling is a finite product and if he had any sense he would have known this and if he didn't he should be fired .
HoosierCowboy
(561 posts)Taking a communitys' money somewhere else, Producing nothing, demanding everything. Shut it down and leave New Jersey because there's no future in working for an asshole like Icahn.