Strike at the Taj; Macao half-full or half-empty?

While Tropicana Entertainment managed to stave off at the very last minute a strike at its eponymous Atlantic City casino, Trump Taj Mahal was not so fortunate. In a 99% predictable outcome, roughly 1,000 Taj workers walked off their jobs early this morning. This labor action had been seen coming down the pike ever since then-CEO Bob Griffin screwed over the workforce with wage and benefit cuts. While Trop CEO Anthony Rodio was willing to revoke Griffin’s evisceration of the Taj health plan, that wasn’t enough to satisfy Local 54 of Unite-Here which called Rodio’s give-back a “shadow” of what was needed. Rodio blamed the victim, saying, “The employees of the Taj bargaining committee seem hell-bent on trying to close this property and killing the jobs and livelihood of the other Taj employees, including their own union members.” The union responds that many of its members are eking out a bare existence on Food Stamps.

Rodio could at least derive cold comfort from the fact that Local 54 leadership urged ratification of the pact with the Trop (as it did with an agreement with Caesars Entertainment‘s three casinos, “the best contract we’ve negotiated in 20 years,” according to the union). The affected workers at the Taj include cooks, porters and cocktail servers: “In short, they are the infrastructure of the city’s casino industry.” Dealers will, at least, stay at their posts. (And you may be relieved to note that a Whitesnake concert is going ahead as planned.)

Meanwhile, the Caesars properties, the Trop, Borgata, the Golden Nugget and Resorts Atlantic City are whistling a merry tune this holiday weekend, having either made peace with the union or — in the latter case — having been granted an extension on labor negotiations. The dark cloud looming over the Taj, meanwhile, is whether Carl Icahn will seize upon the strike to make good on his frequent threat to close the joint, a sad fate for the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Already, Icahn is conducting surveillance of the protesters, raising the specter of post-strike retaliation. (Some picketers actually had the nerve to parking in the Taj garage.)

“It’s telling that workers at the Trop are elated, and their co-workers at the Taj Mahal are on strike today. It’s a bipolar company; I don’t understand why they do this,” said Local 54 President Robert McDevitt. “Workers in Atlantic City understand that there was a social compact in 1976 when gaming was first approved for Atlantic City: We will give you a license to make money, but the jobs have to be good, middle-class jobs. At the Taj Mahal, they’re poverty level.” Icahn’s people maintain that they can hang tough through the balance of the summer — and there are a significant number of ex-casino workers on the Atlantic City job market. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if Icahn decided the Taj is more trouble than it’s worth.

The strike is not a decision taken lightly by Taj workers. Mayra Gonzalez, who’s put in 26 years at the Taj, says that 17% of her $21,600 salary now goes to Affordable Care Act payments since Griffin revoked health care, aside from an ACA stipend. Taj waitress Maria Guzman says she hasn’t gone to a doctor since the gutting of the health plan. “We’re willing to be here as long as it takes to get at least some of it back, especially health care,” says Gonzalez. It looks like Icahn picked a fight with the wrong crowd.

* While downward casino trends in Macao are shallowing, they’re still worse than Wall Street analysts expect. June business was expected to be down 4.5% to 7% from last year. Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli called it “an unsurprising result … but a miss nonetheless.” Instead, it declined 8.5%. The good news is that we’re into single-digit declines. The not-so-good news is that Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands are going to be opening megaresorts in an anemic economic climate. It may be heresy to suggest this but Macao’s peak years of gambling revenue may be behind it and operators will have to adjust to a different market and chastened economic conditions.

* Arizona state officials are still hopping mad at the Tohono O’Odham Nation but the tribe is making the City of Glendale happy. It has made the first, $1.2 million payment to Glendale, the downpayment on $25 million over the next two decades. That number will be easier to hit if the tribe can come to terms with a recalcitrant Gov. Doug Ducey (R) and upgrade to Class III gambling, but it’s clear that the Tohono O’Odham aren’t doing too shabbily with Class II machines.

* There’s a new, moralistic wind blowing in the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte got in touch with his inner Sheldon Adelson and called for a ban on Internet gambling. That would include revoking the licenses of existing operators. “Online gambling must stop … it’s out of control in [Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp.]. I do not want a proliferation of gambling activities all over the country,” Duterte raged to his cabinet on live TV. On the latter point, Duterte is trying to close the barn door after the horse has fled, but his draconian rhetoric could put a chill into an investment climate that was heating up. It’s another instance of the unpredictability that has kept U.S. operators — aside from a brief sniff by Gary Loveman — away from the Filipino market.