10.18.2011
By Matt Helms
mhelms@freepress.com, @matthelms or 313.222.1450.
Thousands of unionized workers at Detroit’s three casinos are threatening to strike if management and labor can’t reach a deal by midnight tonight.
Negotiations were ongoing today after being extended for 48 hours past a Sunday deadline.
Representatives of several of the five unions on the Detroit Casino Council, representing dealers, hotel and restaurant workers, engineering, maintenance and other fields, couldn’t be reached this
morning.
UNITE-HERE Local 24, which represents hospitality workers at the casinos, said in a statement that members of the casino council on Oct. 11 approved a strike vote “by a margin of 97% in order to maintain the wages, benefits and working conditions they deserve” if an agreement isn’t reached.
Motor City Casino-Hotel spokeswoman Jacci Woods said only that management and the unions “have agreed to continue to meet and negotiate in good faith in hopes of reaching an agreement on a new contract prior to the new deadline.”
Greektown Casino-Hotel declined comment. MGM Grand Detroit officials couldn’t immediately be reached.
These are critical times for the casinos.
Despite having done well in the recession compared to the U.S. gambling industry as a whole, they're heavily indebted and face growing competition from Michigan’s Indian casinos and a new gambling hall set to open in Toledo next year.
Even third-place Greektown, which went through bankruptcy from which it emerged in June 2010, would have fared better without the debt all three casinos took on to build 400-room hotels required under city licensing deals, said Lansing-based casino analyst Jake Miklojcik.
“It’s like having a $300,000 house with a $600,000 mortgage,” said Miklojcik, a member of the board at Greektown during bankruptcy.
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