“In the end, these workers stood up for what every other casino worker doing their job in this town has, and what every other casino worker here has had since gaming was introduced to Atlantic City over three decades ago,” McDevitt said. In a statement by the president of Local 54, Bob McDevitt, the union put the blame on mismanagement by Icahn – and threw in a sideshot at Trump, who has floated Icahn as a potential treasury secretary if he wins the presidential election in November. More than 1,000 members of the Local 54 chapter of the Unite-Here union have been on strike since 1 July, demanding restoration of the health insurance and pension benefits that were stripped from the casino’s employees by a bankruptcy court judge in 2014. “Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we will have to close the Taj after Labor Day weekend.” “Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability,” Rodio continued.

“Like many of the employees at the Taj Mahal, I wish things had turned out differently.“Icahn Enterprises saved the Tropicana, and to date has lost almost $100m trying to save the Taj when no other party including the prior equity owners who put it into its recent bankruptcy were willing to invest even one dollar to save it,” Rodio said, referring to Carl Icahn, the current owner of the Trump Taj Mahal, who purchased the final shares of the resort casino from Trump in February. “Today is a sad day for Atlantic City,” he said Monday. It was then that he decided to close the casino, fearing he would lose an additional $100 million next year. 3, when he determined the $350 million he had lost investing in, and then owning, the Taj Mahal was enough. Icahn reached his own Popeye moment on Aug. I applaud them: for the first time in 30 years, workers stood up to Carl Icahn and made him throw in the towel.” “The workers made a choice that they weren’t going to accept benefits and terms of employment worse than everyone else’s. “Everybody has their Popeye moment: ‘That’s all I can stands I can’t stands no more,’ ” he said. The Taj Mahal becomes the fifth Atlantic City casino to go out of business since 2014, when four others, including Trump Plaza, shut their doors.īob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, said virtually all of the striking workers feel the same way.

Atlantic city casinos closing 2016