Sheldon Adelson may play the tough guy at home but he’s a pushover in Macao. Rather than anger his Communist overlords, Adelson apologized for a labor march that just so happened to be held outside Venetian Macao. The protest was organized to call for 10% pay raises and more promotions of dealers to supervisors.
“Some people at Sands China are working as dealer supervisors but only getting dealer salaries. Our issue is only with Sands,” said organizer Kelvin Leong. The protest group, Forefront of the Macao Gaming, appears to have marshaled considerably more than the 200 protesters estimated by police (such wild discrepancies in reporting are nothing new). However, its demands rang a bit hollow since it didn’t have Sands China membership numbers and nobody knew if Adelson’s employees were actually participating in the protest or signed a 5,000-signatory petition that was delivered to Sands management.
Since employers in Macao can be sanctioned by their bosses without having any legal recourse, Sands workers would do well to lie low and let other casino workers duke it out on their behalf. As for Sands, it said 70% of its table-game employees had received salary increases or promotions. Said Leong, “the management thinks it knows what Sands’ workers want, but actually we think what the workers are saying doesn’t get to the big bosses.”
Sands replied, “[we have] in place various communication channels to encourage direct feedback from our team members, including via the company intranet, opinion boxes, team member concierge, direct communication with human resources and regular communication sessions.” And Sheldon knows how to strum a golden harp when he needs to serenade City Hall.
* Wynn Resorts is running into some Macao-related troubles of its own. Namely, the Commission Against Corruption wants to know why it cost Wynn $50 million to obtain the land for Wynn Palace. “Wynn Resorts had to buy the rights from certain mainlanders, though the Land Public Works and Transport Bureau said it wasn’t aware of their involvement, according to the Macau Business report.”
* Halfway around the globe, in Boston, Steve Wynn has some new bivalve friends. He’s going to put 250,000 oysters to work, cleaning the waters of the Mystic River. Wynn says he’ll be the first private sector developer to team with an oyster restorer and his “commitment goes above and beyond what is required by law and will convert a contaminated former chemical plant site into a public waterfront gem that everyone can enjoy,” according to associate Robert DeSalvio. “The Everett waterfront has been locked out of public use for more than a century. We’re going to open it up in grand fashion and create a spectacular esplanade”
Wynn will underwrite the Massachusetts Oyster Project. The latter will build up beds of oyster shells and then populate them with live oysters, who will — in the aggregate — filter 7.5 million gallons of water a day. Total cost of the project, including building a park and mall, plus water taxi service, has been pegged at $30 million, leaving Wynn $1.57 billion for everything else. The choice of oysters as decontaminants is historically symmetrical: Before Monsanto Chemicals crapped up Wynn’s site with pollutants, it was the home of the W.A. Atwood Co. oyster farm. Wynn Boston has so much promise to be an exciting and innovative project that it’s a shame to think that it’s the underdog.
* That tinkling sound you hear is the continued shattering of the glass ceiling over at Caesars Entertainment, where women continue to be brought into the top ranks. Skift has the skinny and kudos to Caesars for thinking — and acting — progressively.
Agreed on Wynn. The MA commission would be out of their minds not to award him the project!