Police in Atlantic City are arresting protesting casino workers who are blocking the entrance to the Tropicana Casino and Resort.
About 50 union members wearing lime green shirts with the phrase ``Protecting the Promise'' have sat down along Pacific Avenue, near the casino's front entrance Friday night.
Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, says actions against the casino will continue unless it agrees to a new contract and reinstates employee pension plans it canceled in favor of direct cash payments to workers.
The casino has not signed a contract with the union since their last pact expired in September. The main sticking point is the Tropicana's cancellation of employee pensions in favor of direct cash payments.
The dispute began earlier this year when the Tropicana declared an impasse in contract talks with the union.
Tropicana president Tony Rodio said the union "has grossly distorted the issue."
"The pension plan they want us to participate in is grossly underfunded and has been egregiously mismanaged," he said. "They want us to bail them out and at the same time they're drastically cutting our employees' retirement benefits because this pension fund is in critical status. We're providing a better and safer plan. This whole circus is being orchestrated by union leaders to protect their own turf."
Rodio has previously said that because billionaire Carl Icahn bought the casino at a bankruptcy sale, he does not have to assume future liabilities for the Tropicana's portion of a pension fund Rodio says is underfunded by at least $1.3 billion.
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Instead of sending payments to a national pension fund, the casino instead will contribute the $1.77 per hour per employee that otherwise would have gone into the pension fund to an employee's 401(k) plan, or to a lump-sum cash payment, at the discretion of each employee.
The dispute is rapidly shaping up as a test of wills between the casino and the powerful union, which brought the resort to its knees with a 2004 strike.
The Tropicana and Revel, which opened in April, are the only two of Atlantic City's 12 casinos that do not have current contracts with Local 54.
Until now, both sides had been working hard to achieve labor peace, saying that a strike would cause far greater damage now than it did seven years ago, when Atlantic City's revenues were near their height. During the past five years, Atlantic City's casino revenues have fallen from $5.2 billion to $3.3 billion last year. Thousands of jobs have disappeared as well.
McDevitt says the demonstration is just the first step in what he promises will be an escalating campaign of pressure against the Tropicana if the contract impasse continues.
"This is the first; it will not be the last," he said. "We're going to keep ratcheting things up until they agree to a fair contract and save the pensions our employees worked so hard for."
