Judge limits picket activity

John Curran

Monday, Oct. 4, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY -- A judge this weekend agreed to limit picket-line activity by striking casino and hotel workers after lawyers for the casinos said union members were creating safety hazards by choking sidewalks.

After hearing appeals from representatives of Harrah's Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment, Superior Court Judge George Seltzer granted a temporary restraining order that imposed restrictions about the locations of pickets. He did not restrict the number that could be on the Boardwalk.

"Picketers were impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic along Pacific Avenue to the point that pedestrians were being forced to walk on the curb or in the street," said Caesars spokesman Brian Cahill.

Last week Seltzer imposed similar restrictions on pickets at Tropicana Casino & Resort.

The workers donned ponchos and hats Saturday, walking picket lines in the rain as a strike by 10,000 service workers entered its second day.

Gamblers, meanwhile, began getting used to life without the striking workers, enduring noisy picket-line protests on their way into properties where restaurants were closed and services were curtailed as a result of the strike by about 10,000 people.

The workers, members of Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, have been working without a contract since Sept. 15 and walked off their jobs Friday.

"We gotta' do what we gotta' do, rain or shine," said Bernard Bryant, 54, a room service cashier at Resorts Atlantic City, who wore a green poncho and a baseball cap as he walked a picket line on North Carolina Avenue with 15 other union members.

"We're not asking for any unreasonable demands," said Bryant.

On the Boardwalk, Local 54's Bob Marrone led a group of about 20 strikers who marched in an oval-shaped pattern, calling through a bullhorn to them.

"Hey hey, ho, ho," they chanted.

"Corporate greed has got to go," Marrone yelled in response.

No new talks were scheduled between the union and the seven properties they are striking in a contract dispute centered on health care premiums and the casinos' use of nonunion restaurant chains.

But the strike was affecting others, too.

Yellow Cab driver Faisal Quraishi, 33, said there were fewer gamblers in Atlantic City than usual on an autumn Saturday, and he blamed it on the strike.

"Because of the strike, the people are afraid to come here," he said, waiting for fares at Resorts. "They don't want to come because they don't know what's going on. Saturday is usually very busy."

Gamblers and visitors alike noticed the restaurant closings, locked public bathrooms and slower service forced by the sudden exodus of so many workers.

They had mixed feelings, with some expressing sympathy for the strikers but others unhappy at having to eat off paper plates, use paper plates at buffets and endure botched orders.

"They're having trouble setting the tables and we had to eat off paper plates instead of dishes," said Ed Garrison, 59, of Burlington, N.J., who spent Friday night at Resorts Atlantic City with his wife, Helen. "I'd like to see them settle it."

Lynn Pittmon, 45, of Washington, D.C., stood on the Boardwalk outside Resorts' Beachball Deli, which was closed.

"We were going to go there to eat, it's our favorite place. Now, I guess we'll go to Trump," she said, nodding toward Trump Taj Mahal, next door. "Is Trump open?"

It was. Trump's casinos settled with Local 54 late Thursday, thereby averting a strike at Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina casinos.

"The people who are working did a good job," said Armin Taege, 32, of Sarnia, Ontario, as he checked out of the Tropicana Casino and Resort. "You knew they weren't waitresses or waiters, though, you could tell by the way they carried the trays. And they looked tired."

Card dealers, front-office executives and other workers who aren't members of Local 54 were substituting for the strikers, some of them working 12-hour shifts in jobs unfamiliar to them.

"We've had to scale back some of the food and beverage operations, but our properties are very busy today," said Cahill, whose company runs the Bally's Atlantic City, Caesars and Atlantic City Hilton casinos.

At Resorts, a vice president of hotel operations was giving out valet parking tickets to incoming customers.

"I've been in this business for 26 years, this is no problem," said the man, who would not give his name.