Vol. 4, No. 8, August 2007
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Local 54 to oppose Trop license
Normally, a new casino company would have the support of most local organizations, but the rocky start for Columbia Sussex as owners of the Tropicana may come back to haunt it.
Local 54 of UNITE HERE, the industry’s largest union covering food-and-beverage and hotel workers, announced recently that it would oppose a permanent license for the Tropicana when hearings start next month. Recently re-elected President Bob McDevitt says the company isn’t acting ethically or responsibly when it fires almost 20 percent of its workforce.
“The objective of the successful effort to create casino gambling in Atlantic City was to create a world-class tourist destination from a faded resort, down at its heels,” McDevitt explains. “The experiment worked and Atlantic City has grown and improved each year with billions of dollars of investment here, many thousands of jobs and a tremendous impact on the New Jersey state economy.
“The Tropicana has become more than an embarrassment to Atlantic City. The way that Tropicana now goes about its business of running a tourist attraction is nothing less than a menace to the entire tourism industry here at a time when we are being economically challenged by emerging gambling destinations.”
Because of that, McDevitt says Columbia Sussex should be denied a casino license in New Jersey, even though the Casino Control Commission says its definitions of duties would make that difficult.
“Local 54’s position is that Columbia Sussex is not complying with the requirement under the Casino Control Act to ‘operate a world-class facility,’” says McDevitt. “But this should not be just a ‘union issue.’ It’s an ‘Atlantic City issue,’ as well. The current corporate model at Tropicana is not only unacceptable, it is in direct opposition to this entire community’s combined efforts to improve the Atlantic City product and to make our resort a world-class destination.”
Tropicana officials contend that they are employing a Columbia Sussex business model that is new to Atlantic City, and will run a facility that will appeal to visitors, but also become a profitable company that will benefit not only the city but all employees, as well.
