Union offers to resume talks with Atlantic City casinos

John Curran

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY -- Striking casino and hotel workers offered Monday to resume negotiations in the hope of ending a 10-day-old strike that has idled thousands, forced casinos to improvise and made gamblers eat off paper plates.

Robert McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, called on the casinos' newly formed "Coordinated Bargaining Group" to meet with union representatives on Oct. 15.

The union has rented out a meeting room in anticipation of resuming talks. None has been held since the Oct. 1 walkout by 10,000 bartenders, cocktail servers, housekeepers, porters, food servers and counter servers.

The bargaining group was formed last week by representatives of Harrah's Entertainment, Caesars Entertainment, Resorts Atlantic City and the Tropicana Casino and Resort, the owners of seven casinos where service workers have been off the job.

Prior to that, Local 54 had been negotiating individually with each casino company.

"We don't know how their joining back up together affects their individual proposals, which were at different places when we went on strike," McDevitt said.

"Now that they've all gotten together and have evidently had some conversations, I'm really interested to see where they are now with leave of absence language, subcontracting language, willingness to pay health and welfare (benefits) on vacation hours. We want to see how them getting back together may have moved the process along," McDevitt said.

Caesars Entertainment spokesman Brian Cahill declined comment on the union's offer.

"We have not been formally notified of any negotiations, although we look forward to the next step in settling this contract," said Tropicana spokeswoman Maureen Siman, who said her casino had learned of it from members of the media.

Harrah's spokeswoman Susan Kotzen had no immediate comment.

Five casinos have been excluded from the strike. They are Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Marina, Trump Plaza, the Sands Hotel & Casino and the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.