Photo credit — UNITE HERE local 54
Under the threat of strike, Atlantic City casinos were forced to concede to the largest worker gains in the union’s history. Members of UNITE HERE Local 54, the largest of the unions representing workers in Atlantic City’s casinos, have now won contracts at all nine of the casinos in the city. Headlining the gains were immediate raises to $18/hour for housekeepers with an additional four dollar raise coming by the end of the contract, bringing all workers in the largest classification to $22/hour.
The struggle for this victory took place in stages over the summer, taking advantage of the busy season to leverage worker power during the time when casino owners could least afford a strike. The Fourth of July holiday weekend was used as the first major pressure point at five of the casinos. 96% of workers at the Borgata (operated by MGM), Caesars, Harrah’s, Tropicana (all operated by Ceasar’s Entertainment), and Hard Rock voted on June 16 to authorize a strike beginning on July 1. During the month of June leading up to the deadline, workers picketed and delegated their bosses en masse. The MGM and Caesars casinos caved to the workers’ demands and agreed to a contract at 11:00 p.m. on June 30, one hour before the strike deadline. The Hard Rock similarly agreed to the union’s demands ahead of its workers’ July 3 strike deadline. Two other casinos, Bally’s and Ocean Casino Resort, had agreements with the larger casinos and workers there won the same victorious terms. Ratification for the new contracts took place on July 11th and 99% of workers voted in favor of ratification.
With workers at 7 out of 9 casinos having won, the city’s workers turned their attention to the two remaining properties, Resorts and Golden Nugget. Workers participated in button ups at the two casinos on July 15 and held a strike authorization vote on July 19. This time around, 97% of workers elected to authorize a strike. With a deadline set for July 30, the casinos agreed to the same raises and demands as the other casinos on July 27 and July 28 respectively. After coming into the summer hungry for a fight, all 10,000 workers in Atlantic City are now coming out the other side with real material gains in hand.
A history of militant strikes
Timing the struggle for the summer months was a historically informed choice by the workers. Local 54 released a report credibly claiming that a strike at the MGM and Caesars casinos would cost them $2.6 million a day, and that 42% of Caesars 2021 profits came in the third (summer) quarter. Furthermore, a previous Atlantic City casino strike at the Carl Icahn-owned Trump Taj Mahal in the summer of 2016 caused its closure when workers refused to continue tolerating draconian cuts to their health insurance and pension, along with workload increases imposed by bankruptcy court.
Also still fresh in the minds of workers and bosses was the 2004 strike at seven Atlantic City casinos including all of Caesars’ properties at the time. The 34 day strike, which until the Taj Mahal strike was the longest in the city’s history, ended in victory for the workers and caused a 20% decline in Caesars’ gaming revenue and a loss of $10 million according to the company’s own public statements.
Their increased leverage combined with the sacrifices and suffering of the past few years emboldened Local 54 members to make more aggressive demands than usual. Casino profits are up from even pre-pandemic levels. Depending on how to account for online gaming, revenues were up anywhere from 5% to 49% through the first five months of 2022 as compared to the same months of 2019. At the same time, a survey of nearly 2,000 Local 54 members conducted in March and April 2020 found that 61% had struggled to pay their rent or mortgage and 32% had lacked money for food. 66% reported working short-staffed at least three days a week.
Ronnette Lark, housekeeping employee at Harrah’s for the past 24 years and shop steward, saw her income rise immediately upon ratification from $16.25 per hour to $19 per hour, and knows she can look forward to an additional $4 in the years to come. She told Liberation News, “I have a 3 year old – now I don’t need to say, ‘Wait for Mommy to get paid,’ we can just go shopping. Plus, I’m less tired.”
Being less tired is in fact another crucial gain of the contract fight for workers in housekeeping. Hotel and casino bosses have long sought to eliminate daily room cleaning as a way to cut labor costs and increase their profits while hiding behind noble justifications. For years it was via so-called “Green Choice Programs” and more recently the justification has been preserving guest safety and comfort during the pandemic. The consequence of this for workers has been lost jobs and cut hours for many, coupled with drastically increased workload and rates of injury for those who do actually clean the now much dirtier rooms.
While a 2020 New Jersey state law mandated daily room cleaning, both workers and casino bosses had acknowledged that staffing levels had prevented this from happening. In fact, the casinos faced a shortage of 2,500 workers heading into the summer. Lark is confident the economic gains of the contract will finally enable the casinos to hire enough staff to fulfill the terms of the contract and the law her fellow union members have fought for, and said she was proudest of all of this achievement.
When asked what was most challenging about organizing her coworkers to fight for the contract, Lark said that for the more senior workers, including herself, it was initially challenging to embrace a fight for uniform wages and wage increases across all levels of seniority, where previously there had been highly variable wages. There was pushback along the lines of, ‘why should someone who has only worked here for six months, a year, five years, make the same as someone who’s been here working for 40?’ However, Lark said she realized “they go to the same gas stations, the same ShopRites,” and they are all struggling to survive regardless of what wages they earn and need to take drastic steps forward together.
Lark, who had brought her older child to the picket line for those 34 days in 2004, was prepared to bring her three year old daughter onto the picket line if an agreement had not been reached. Of her children, Lark shared, “I want them to know, never give up and always fight for what you believe in.”
