Union: Casinos bullying strikers

Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

ATLANTIC CITY -- The union representing 10,000 striking casino and hotel employees accused casinos Thursday of threatening and harassing rank-and-file workers in a bid to break the three-week walkout.

In complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board, Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union cited 214 incidents in which it said service workers were harassed and intimidated by managers, executives and non-union employees still on the job at the seven struck casinos.

The NLRB received the complaints and will investigate them, according to Dorothy L. Moore-Duncan, regional director of the federal agency's Philadelphia office.

Casinos denied the allegations, one calling the complaints a common tactic in such disputes.

"There's absolutely no merit to them whatsoever," said Dennis Gomes, president of resort operations for Aztar Corp., which owns the Tropicana Casino and Resort. "It shows a desperation on the part of the union, because this situation has gone beyond where it should have."

The complaints name casinos and identify their employees by name, but don't list times or locations for the incidents, most of which involved verbal exchanges along picket lines.

Among them:

Similar complaints named employees and executives at the other six casinos involved -- Bally's Atlantic City, Resorts Atlantic City, Showboat Casino-Hotel, Harrah's Atlantic City and the Atlantic City Hilton.

Brian Cahill, a spokesman for Caesars Entertainment, called the unfair practices complaints common.

"This is a common tactic in labor strike negotiations and therefore we anticipate the filing of such complaints. We feel strongly we have conducted ourselves in a proper, fair and legal manner," said Cahill.

Union lawyer Arlus Stephens said four strikers have been fired, including Debbie Costello, 51, a 24-year cocktail server at Harrah's Atlantic City. She said she had been sent a notice of termination that did not give a reason.

"I'm confident that the union will fight for my job back, but I have to know what it is they fired me for," said Costello, a strike captain and member of the union's contract committee. "I'm just at a loss."

Harrah's spokeswoman Susan Kotzen said the casino had not seen copies of the complaints and could not comment on them. She did not comment on Costello's case.

David Strow, a Harrah's spokesman in Las Vegas, said the company held a job fair for permanent replacement workers last week but couldn't say whether any workers had been hired so far.

According to Cahill, no employees of Caesars' three Atlantic City casinos had been permanently replaced.

The company has hired about 100 people so far from a job fair held last week and intends to hire more workers at an upcoming job fair, Caesars' Las Vegas spokesman Robert Stewart said.

The new hires are intended to fill positions that were open prior to the strike, he said. The company also has hired some workers on a contract basis to perform housekeeping duties, he said.

Gomes said that Tropicana has replaced workers on strike in order to keep operating; none have been fired, he said.

"But that's the next thing we'll have to do if this thing doesn't make some progress," he said.

A spokesman for Colony Capital, which owns Resorts Atlantic City, declined to comment on the charges.

The Associaed Press

and Sun business writer Liz Benston contributed to this report.